Lethal force against the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters would be justified

Pro's argument for war on American citizens depends entirely on the belief that NODAPL protestors are politically incorrect. If the protestor's arguments can be shown to be false, Pro states, then war is justified. Con believes that distrust and occasional disobedience against the authority of govt. is a foundational principal of American democracy, that the demand for increased enfranchisement has been the the most powerful engine for American success, that our shared survival as Americans depends upon our collective willingness to listen to the free speech of new thought, empowered by the First Ammendment to advance the American experiment into new frontiers. We Americans must encourage movements that debate, protest, resist, and revolt, even wrong-headed movements so long as those movements don't threaten our integrity to any existential degree. To violently suppress speech merely because the govt. determines that speech is wrong is the way of the despot and poison to democracy. We need not care whether Standing Rock's argument is sound to reject the impulse to kill the men and women at Standing Rock. Lawful Americans do not kill Americans except in response to imminent threat without peaceful redress. We do not authorize our govt kill except as a punishment of last resort, when all other alternatives increase the threat to peace. No such threat is evident in the events at Standing Rock and Pro's contention must be dismissed as overreaction. Standing Rock does not need to be right to invalidate Pro's argument for war, but Pro's argument against the protestors also fails to consider events from any perspective except the corporation's. There is much to consider in the history of genocide and betrayal from the Native American point of view but let's focus on the two arguments brought forward by Pro. Pro dismisses Standing Rock's concerns regarding pipeline ruptures by ridiculously dividing the length of existing pipeline by the number of pipeline ruptures recorded in Wikipedia. We could dismiss the Deepwater Horizon explosion as unrepresentative of the 200+ rigs in the Gulf that operate each year but how does that account for the risk of a repeat of the US 's worst environmental disaster: doing more than $100 billion dollars in economic harm & costing the region at least 22,000 jobs? [1] Even so, Pro's numbers suggest a major pipeline rupture once every two weeks over the past 17 years. Minor spills and ruptures occur almost daily. 176,000 gallons of spilled oil was discovered this week [2] along a 5 mile stretch of Ash Coulee Creek ( a tributary of the Missouri and upriver of Standing Rock's water source at Oahe Resevoir). Last year, 50,000 gallons spilled into the Yellowstone River (also upstream from Standing Rock), although the river was cleaned up and drinking water restored within a few weeks, a major die-off of trout (the Yellowstone is considered by many the best trout river left in the US) caused a 200 mile stretch below the spill to be closed for the entire 2016 season, devastating regional economies. [4]. The Dept of Transportation records more than 220 significant pipeline spills in 2016 alone. [3]. Nor are pipelines the only worry, upriver mining and nuclear power plants are slowly contaminating the Oahe with increasing counts of arsenic, uranium, mercury and other heavy metals. [5] [6] Other upstream communities have the option of pulling water from smaller, cleaner tributaries of the Missouri, but because the Sioux were forced onto the higher, drier plateau of Standing Rock, the Oahe is their only viable source of water. From the perspective of the Standing Rock Sioux, the contamination of their drinking supply is not some remote possibility, it is an ongoing, slowly increasing, mostly neglected environmental catastrophe that must be halted before their homes become uninhabitable. The Dakota Access Pipeline crossing simply offered an immediate, tangible focus for their resistance against a much more far-ranging, diffusive, but ultimately existential threat. Dakota Access invited this resistance by 1) deceptively piecemealing the project into a multitude of smaller projects in order to avoid most Federal assessments of DAPL environmental impact. 2) when the Army Corp of Engineers declined a river crossing 10 miles above Bismark citing unacceptable risk to Bismark's water supply, DAPL re-routed the pipeline south of Bismark, 10 miles above Standing Rock's water plant. 3) When Standing Rock raised the very reasonable question "how can an identical design be unacceptable upstream from Bismark but acceptable upstream from us?," DAPL tried to force a fast-track approval designed to prevent a genuine analysis, ignoring the formal recommendations of the EPA, the Dept of the Interior, & the national Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. [7] 4) Knowing that a formal COE evaluation would almost certainly veto crossing the Missouri at the Cannonball confluence, DAPL tried to rush completion before a decision could be made. If the protestors had not prevented DAPL construction this fall, the crossing would have been hurriedly completed right about now and the Dec 4th recommendation for a full study made obsolete. The wheels of govt were turning to slow to save Standing Rock, so Standing Rock was forced to save itself. To the extent that the threatened water supply at Standing Rock is now a national issue, the protests have achieved their aim & the protestors have mostly disbanded. Countering Pro's archaeological claims is more problematic, since discovering evidence of migratory people's who built few permanent structures is difficult. We should be able to agree that the survey cited by Pro, conducted on one day, Sept 21st, by walking along a 1.36 mile stretch of already bulldozed land looking for bones was hardly conduct worthy of archaeology. We want to remember that this place, where the Cannonball flows into the Missouri was at the center of territorial disputes between the Arikara & Sioux tribes for generations and many minor skirmishes fought there. During white settlement, this confluence was an important an early station for westward expansion, one of the first white ranches in North Dakota, hosting a steamboat port and ferry line, a general store, hotel, & telegraph station. As I noted in R1, this is also the place where dislodged flotsam tends to wash ashore from the original Sioux towns and settlements now drowned beneath the Oahe. Lastly, this year's protest has significantly increased the historic profile of this place. I would expect serious archaeologists to factor these events when considering the impact of new construction, as 1500 archaeologists and historians did when objecting to the State's slap-dash smokescreen of a survey. [9] A few other points where Pro got it wrong: No declaration of war preceded the Whiskey Rebellion. That act of civil disobedience played an important role in illustrating the plight of Appalachian farmers, led directly to that unjust tax's repeal two years later, and played a formative role in the creation and support of the Republican Party. [10] However disruptive, that act of civil diobedience played an important role in US History. How much the worse would our nation be if Washington had slaughtered those men and silenced their voices? In spite of claims of violence by both sides, more than 300 protestors have been treated at Bismark hospitals mostly for hypothermia after enduring water cannons in subzero weather, but also injuries from tear gas, rubber bullets, and dog bites. I have not found any indication that any law enforcement or private security personnel have sought treatment for injuries. I have made no argument for or against the restoration of Sioux lands according to the 1851 treaty. Rather, I'm interested in countering Pro's claim that Standing Rock's grievances are unfounded or irrational. Filing suit to enforce existing legal agreements and having those agreements upheld by the Supreme Court serves as strong evidence countering Pro's claim of baseless agitation. I see no evidence that the current protests include any specific territorial demands- rather the Treaties are recalled to serve as a legal foundation for the civil disobedience. Further, I object to any characterization of aboriginal peoples as "foreigners" in their native lands. As the peaceful subsidence of the protests over the past week proves, war or any lethal response would be an anti-democratic suppression of an important act of civil disobedience.. America is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, the value of which must be exploited with balance and care. Oil is one of those resources but clean water is another and just as important. Our history, our land's natural beauty, our fierce live of free speech are further essential resources. Dakota Access made a mistake when they tried to circumvent the processes designed to promote that careful balance. Standing Rock took a stand in favor of a more considerate approach. If Pro can't admire the protestor's courage, he might at least forbear from shooting on sight. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org... [2] https://www.mprnews.org... [3] http://www.phmsa.dot.gov... [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org... [5] http://www.culturechange.org... [6] http://toxics.usgs.gov... [7] https://en.m.wikipedia.org... [8] https://www.scribd.com... [9] http://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org... [10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org...