U. S. Attorney Justin Herdman, a federal prosecutor based in northern Ohio and a Trump appointee must be commended and elevated. After announcing charges of James Reardon for threatening gun violence against the Jewish Community Center, he had an excoriating message for white nationalists.
Donald Trump may have given these white nationalists the belief that they could have free reign in the country given that it is clear we elected a President with those proclivities. Unfortunately for them, whether Democrat, Republican and otherwise, there are good Americans including many in law enforcement who refuse to buy into the racist tenets. It is clear that Justin Herdman is one of them.
He gave a long speech after announcing the charges against Reardon whose text is currently on the government site for now. Here is the most important snippet in case the President orders it down.
U. S. Attorney Justin Herdman on white nationalists
Now let me speak generally to those who are advocates for white supremacy, or white nationalism. I am talking directly to you. The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice.
Democracy allows you to test those ideas in the public forum. If you want to submit your beliefs to the American people and get their reaction, please be my guest. Keep this in mind, though. Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail – you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones. You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred. Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard.
Go ahead and make your case for Nazism, a white nation, and racial superiority. The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn’t guarantee you a receptive audience.
Your right to free speech does not automatically mean that people will agree with you. In fact, you have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to be on the losing end of this argument.
What you don’t have, though, is the right to take out your frustration at failure in the political arena by resorting to violence. You don’t have any right to threaten the lives and well-being of our neighbors. They have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to live peacefully, to worship as they please, to be free from fear that they might become a target simply because of the color of their skin, the country of their birth, or the form of their prayer.
Threatening to kill Jewish people, gunning down innocent Latinos on a weekend shopping trip, planning and plotting to perpetrate murders in the name of a nonsense racial theory, sitting to pray with God-fearing people who you execute moments later – those actions don’t make you soldiers, they make you criminals. Law enforcement doesn’t go to war with cowards who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison.
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As I said, this case was made by a concerned member of the public and a responsive police officer. That’s all it takes to stop you. The men and women of our community are allied with law enforcement. And every single member of law enforcement took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Many of us have taken that oath several times – as police officers, federal agents, prosecutors, military members, and elected officials.
Together, we represent the absolute best of what America has to offer. Our skin is every color you can imagine, our families come from a hundred different countries and a hundred different faiths. What makes us different doesn’t split us apart, though. Those differences are insignificant compared to what is the same about us – we are united in our commitment to each other, to our families, and to our communities. We are the living embodiment of everything you say is impossible.
Together, we are united to ensure that you commit no further acts of violence in the name of your beliefs. When you wake up tomorrow morning, no matter what time, I want you to remember something. You can’t set your alarm clock early enough to beat us out of bed. The men and women of law enforcement don’t wake up. We never went to sleep. We are always awake. And arm in arm with the public, when your hatred leads you to break the law, we will do everything we can to be there to stop you.
Kudos to U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman.
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Thankyou Justin Herman, for the best speech yet on the extent – and limits – of personal freedom.
It’s a great comfort to know you’re a part of this world and prepared to stand up for the good things in it.
Stay strong.