I’ve never been a big fan of the platitude motivator.  You know what I’m talking about, the picture of some famous person  captioned by some bromide they uttered.  Everytown and Moms Demand Action love posting these trite banalities on their Facebook pages.

Two of the ones they posted have rankled me because of just how off base they are.  Everytown and MDA normally turn a blind eye to history, but in these cases, they’ve really outdone themselves with their own obtuseness.

Rosa Parks was a civil right hero.  She was known for starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was one of the most high profile non-violent movements against segregation in the United States, after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person.

Lets remind ourselves of a few facts in this episode of history.  The bus Rosa Parks was on was a Montgomery, Alabama municipal bus, part of the city’s public transportation system.  She was arrested for violating the law, which demanded that she as a black person, had to sit in the back of the bus or stand, to make room for white people to sit at the front of the bus.

Who was the bad guy in this story?  The government.  It was the law that it was illegal for blacks and whites to sit in the same row in a bus.  It was the law that forced blacks to stand or move back to make room for whites.  It was the city employee bus driver who called the police and it was the police who arrested Rosa Parks.  It was the government that systematically violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in creating a segregated busing system and punished people for using it.

Chief Sitting Bull was a holy man in the Lakota Nation of The Dakota Territory.  Chief Sitting Bull was most famous for taking up arms and leading the Lakota in the Sioux War of 1876, most notably, in defeating the 7th Calvary at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

The Lakota and other plains Indians were systematically oppressed, slaughtered, and forced onto reservations.  Sitting Bull’s people were being exterminated, which is why he fought back.  The Lakota, armed with a motley assortment of privately acquired firearms as well as traditional Indian weapons, managed to defeat the trained and better equipped 7th Calvary, who had cannons and Gatling guns, and was under the command of Civil War veteran (and general at the time) Colonel George Custer.

In every way defined by Everytown and MDA, Chief Sitting Bull was an insurrectionist.  The Indians were disarmed when they were put onto the reservations.  They obtained guns (mostly broken ones that they repaired) through trade and by finding ones left behind.  Several Indians were armed with Henry lever action rifles, which compared to the US Army issue 1873 Trapdoor rifle, was the assault rifle of the day – having a rapid fire capability, shooting a cartridge smaller than a full side rifle, and having a high magazine capacity.  Of course, the Indians should have never been successful going up against the Army.

But again, who was the bad guy in this story?  The US Government, oppressing a minority of people.

Here, Everytown and MDA like to style themselves after civil rights heroes Rosa Parks and Chief Sitting Bull, but in reality they are more like James F. Blake (the Montgomery bus river that called the cops on Rosa Parks) and  Colonel Custer.  Everytown and MDA want to use the power of the government to deny the Constitutionally protected civil liberties of American Citizens.

Everytown and MDA are oppressors claiming to be civil rights activists and insurrectionists.  Their hypocracy would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.