Logical fallacies are nothing new to the US American political consciousness. In some ways, they are a staple of public opinion. “If you don’t like it, leave,” is but the latest example in a long line to have permeated social media. Nevertheless, this opinion, popular in the wake of the Baltimore riots, demands debunking. It is phrases like this that divide countries when they need unity most. And, often, it is phrases like this that run antithetical to liberal democracy.

The notion behind, “If you don’t like it, leave,” is that if you plan to resist the political climate of a country, you should leave it. Essentially, you are a byproduct of the state, not a voice in its affairs. In the US American context, this is contradictory to the Founding Fathers, and in the wider world this has historically proved fallacious.

When men like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams set upon drafting the constitution of the United States, they were inspired by the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment. They sought to protect rights such as freedom of speech, press and assembly, because it was exactly these rights that were stripped away by the King. As Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” It was not that the United States was some static body to which citizens came to adhere; it was a fluid concept crafted by the opinions of all citizens under its jurisdiction.

The right to riot was not protected by our constitution. The destruction of property was likewise deemed deplorable. However, what was far graver — what the framers sought never to occur — was the accusation that people with opposing political views have no place in the country. The United States was not to be a place from which to quash political plurality, it is a place to, as New Hampshire so eloquently enshrines, “live free, or die.”

The United States aside, there is a variety of contemporary examples where groups relocated for their general political beliefs. In 1947, it was Partition. With the British withdrawal from the subcontinent, tens of millions relocated to India or Pakistan, in accordance with their politics. They were, supposedly, no longer in line with the new order, and this was the just course of action. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 died during Partition in the Punjab alone.

In 1984 and 1991, under operations Moses and Solomon, Israel relocated thousands of Ethiopian Jews to the Holy Land. The mentality was, instead of changing the political climate in Ethiopia, that the Jews would be better suited in Israel, a country of similar politico-religious sentiment. Like Partition, the Ethiopian experiment failed in Israel. The Ethiopian Jews have experienced disenfranchisement and systematic discrimination. This claim is more than substantialized by the massive riots in Tel Aviv just last week.

To command that if one is not aligned with the political climate of a country, they should leave is ridiculous. It is this very idea that the United States’ Founding Fathers sought to eradicate, and this is the same idea that has failed time after time in a modern context.

Do not accede to unsubstantiated political domination. You, as a person, are entitled to certain unalienable rights, and chief amongst these is that you as a person have a right to political consciousness. Violence is never optimal; if in our attempts to control it we sacrifice the ability for political discourse, democracy has failed.