It seems that I cannot get away from this title. Why? Because as the events on the news continue to assault my view of this country, I believe that the solution is to return to the basics of fundamental political thought upon which this country was founded and the infrastructure of religious freedom which supports the political freedom.
The trappings of the current unrest and the apparently organized and funded scale of the disturbances bring to mind the French Revolution of the late 18th century, which led to the reign of terror with tremendous loss of life at the guillotines in the 1790s and eventually led to the rise of Napoleon as a military dictator.
Defund the Police? I don't even know how to respond to this suggestion. I have served as a law enforcement officer and as a prosecuting attorney at various times of my life. I never saw either of these positions as anything but public service. If there are areas where police actions show a pattern of lack of respect for the citizens they serve, then the response should be an increase in funding to provide education to the police in tactics and policies necessary to meet the expectations of the communities. The attorney general of Minnesota thinks that we should not send police with guns to domestic violence complaints - despite the fact that these types of calls represent one of the greatest threats to officer safety. It doesn't seem to matter that the unrest in the larger cities took place in areas that have been run by liberal-left administrations for decades. 
The statistics show more police officers are killed in the line of duty that the small number of unarmed black victims that are killed by the Police. The greatest threat to young men in any area seems to be assailants of their own race (White, Black, Hispanic or Asian). The Minneapolis victim (George Floyd) is a tragedy but the conduct of the officer will be prosecuted as the crime that the video appears to show. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The root cause of violence seems to be poverty - not race. And the police do not cause poverty.
I recently heard an interview with Victor Davis Hanson who, as usual, combines the view of a historian with an organized mind and a marvelous grasp of facts which permits him to present a cogent argument to support his point of view in the current conversations. (The idea that he seems to agree with me frequently is not lost on me) Professor Hanson has lived a life that gives him a unique perspective on the present in addition to his academic studies in history and the influences of the classical periods and civilizations. He lives on a family farm near Sacramento, California, (one of the poorest counties in California) and works (when not working on the farm) at Stanford University in PaloAlto (one of the wealthiest counties in California). The rather casual interview takes place from his home via telephone with a New York talk show. The segment is 39 minutes and is worth listening for the entire interview, if possible. YouTube video of VDH interview
The protestors feel that they have grievances and, clearly, we need to give them space and a forum to be heard. But the rioters and looters and those who incite them to illegal actions should be arrested and prosecuted. The instigators, politicians and the media who pander to the mob and turn a minor local incident into a national narrative to suit their own agenda will get what they deserve at the 2020 elections. Or, in the alternative, we will get what we deserve and see our nation crumble into the dustbin of history if We The People do not take a stand at the ballot box.
The Declaration of Independence gave us the following promise, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That was the promise - can we keep it in 2020 and the years that follow.
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