Free the U.S. Capitol
Barbed wire remains outside historic building in Washington, D.C.
Why is our Capitol imprisoned? Weeks before a strange virus from Wuhan turned the whole world upside down, Steve and I had requested a tour of our nation’s Capitol through our senator as part of a planned road trip down the eastern seaboard. Of course, soon after the COVID-19 crap had hit the fan, our best-laid plan to visit the Capitol was immediately nixed.
As too many understand all too well, lots of plans were stopped dead in their tracks, moments stolen forever. But the void left behind has given us time to reflect. And that means lots of questions as to why such a drastic response to a virus that most would survive.
All one has to do is listen to the Capitol riot hearings to learn that repeated news reports of a Capitol officer being bludgeoned by Trump supporters were untrue. In fact, the officer’s death remains a mystery but for his mother who testified, she believes her son died of a stroke. And so, the damage had already been done by the false media reports told and printed over and over again. Tales served as a cudgel to bludgeon anything MAGA to death.
Not much was reported on the tragic suicides of two officers shortly thereafter. And little to none was reported on the presence and riotous role of far-left groups who had nothing to do with supporting then-President Trump — or President Biden, for that matter. Few seem to wonder why there was such a light police presence on a day when hundreds of thousands of people were expected to show up in our nation’s Capitol and did.
The crowds included many families pushing baby strollers, kids in tow, waving American flags and accompanying older folks, most dressed in patriotic red, white and blue, veterans who served with pride and defended our country with honor. Yet somehow these hard-working and honest Americans who happened to support a president who represented them were quickly demonized by much of the media and opposition leaders as rioters and even domestic terrorists.
Were these Americans really at their nation’s Capitol as insurrectionists, or were they possibly Americans caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time?
And almost 50 days later, one look at the razor-sharp, militant perimeter fence imprisoning our nation’s beautiful Capitol clearly shows that things are upside down and backwards.
Our nation’s Capitol is a special place. And so we visited more than once when our kids were growing up as part of our family road trips to Florida. We pored over the jaw-dropping Smithsonian Institutions with its 17 museums, galleries and zoo. We explored the national parks with many awe-inspiring memorials, such as Jefferson’s and Lincoln’s, entered the red-velvet-draped Ford’s Theatre, stood at the bedside where our 16th president was read his Last Rites. We marveled at the magnificence of the National Mall, the magic of acoustics as we whispered inside the Rotunda of the Capitol. The kids ate it up. And it wasn’t just the larger-than-life architecture, the way the Washington monument cast a shadow like a monolithic sundial, the interaction with all walks of life. It was the fundamental principles of equality and freedom erected all around us which defined us as Americans. That was as palpable as a health checkup, and we knew we were a smaller part of a larger whole that was based on something wholesome and good.
Stopping in D. C. was important for us all, and we wanted our children to put the places with the faces of history in the pages of their schoolbooks so they could better understand their democratic republic with all of its due process and checks and balances.
We hope they will work to keep those lessons alive for their children.
When I think back to all the trips we took with our kids, D.C. remains a pinnacle of meaningful memories.
Amidst all of our cross- country road trips in a Suburban packed with our four kids, stuffed sleeping bags and plenty of peanut- butter sandwiches, we’d make the Capitol, much of its held treasures and hallowed places free and open to the public, a destination.
I like to think the real power of Washington, D.C., is in all the people who come to support its institutions of research, see its architecture symbolic of great minds and even greater promise, feel its breadth, emblematic in the sacrifices made toward upholding the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for its people, all of it the very road map for life the American way.
Most Americans are proud and grateful to live in a country that recognizes the right to speak your mind, the right to protect yourself and the right to pursue and set goals for your dreams.
These fundamental ideas are sacrosanct.
And yet, some in Congress suggest that these ideas are somehow dangerous.
Today’s images of our nation’s Capitol surrounded and strangled by high walls and razor wire are heart- breaking.
Thousands of National Guard members, still deployed after a strange Capitol storming, has left more questions than answers.
Our American servicemen and women have been standing guard for close to 50 days along those barricades, but no one seems to be able to tell the American people exactly what the threat is and precisely who sent them.
In another time, Steve and I would plan a stop in D.C. this spring.
A visit to our special Capitol would be open and free as it should be.
But the Capitol is closed to the American public, and to the world as well. And that is a sad state of affairs on all accounts.
When will our nation’s schoolchildren be able to experience what their parents were so free to acknowledge?
Soon, I hope.
Bonnie Toomey’s stories, essays, and poems have been featured in Baystateparent Magazine, New Hampshire Parents Magazine, Baystate Echo, Penwood Review and Solace in a Book. She worked as an adjunct at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, where she earned a master’s degree in literacy. Bonnie writes about life in the 21st century and lives in New Hampshire with her husband. Learn more at www.thedeepbeautybook.com/ writers-2/bonnie-j-toomey.