I read a couple news report/blogs concerning abuse of power police raids in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area that sounded hyperbolic. Whether from the Right or Left, I’m always skeptical, perhaps even a tad cynical, when I confront “news” or opinions that include inflammatory terms. That doesn’t mean I won’t believe them only that I’m always skeptical; okay . . . cynical. To me, evidence is everything.

To get this out of the way, I’m an army infantry veteran; 7^th Cav. I volunteered for Vietnam, and the only reason I repeat these facts somewhat rather too is because John McCain, his supporters, the press, and even the Obama campaign continually raise McCain’s service rather too frequently. I didn’t used to bring up my service because it was what I did, and so what? When John Kerry came to the podium four years ago, saluted smartly, and began, “Lieutenant Kerry reporting for duty sir! Permission to come aboard,” I was visibly embarrassed. Again, so what?

Rank or length of service, MOS, or duty station provides no necessary expertise or wisdom on a given topic, nor a place at the front of the leadership line. The operative word here being “necessary.” Ya did what ya did, ya got what ya got, and why can’t that be the end of it?

Unless, of course, there’s a tie-in with what the government is doing today with what it did or did not do or should have done yesterday that demonstrates lessons that should have been learned never were. By 2004 it was painfully (no hyperbole intended) evident that the Bush administration, backed by the Republican congress and by Republican voters nationally, not only hadn’t learned a thing from our Vietnam experience, they hadn’t bothered to open a single history book or speak with one of those who slogged the jungles and paddies, who had been witness to the piercing, agonizing screams of one who had been badly injured, perhaps en route to death, perhaps not. Or spoken to one of those whose participation in a fire fight left him witness to the mutilation, death and dismemberment of small children, their mothers, and their aged grandparents that his participation had caused. Explain it all you want as justified, the mind doesn’t always go along, and when it doesn’t go along, it punishes the soldier just as if he were a child-killing murderer.       

So last year in Reno, the site where the American Legion was holding their national convention, when I learned AL had invited George Bush to address them as the keynote speaker, I was enraged. How dare this silly hat-wearing outfit invite someone who was personally responsible for the death and mutilation and devastation of an entire country; most of whom were guilty only of being in that country, trying to get from one day to the next? Especially a man, when given the chance, who was among the very first to cowardly cut and run?

I abhor group protests to the core of my being. Call it what you will, but it’s group-think; chanting mindless chants on cue. Nonetheless, there does come a time . . .  And it was known that a protest was planned the following day, outside the convention center on Virginia Street.

The evening before he was to speak, my partner and I decided to avail ourselves of the buffet dinner at the GSR (Grand Sierra Resort and Casino), the hotel where President Bush was staying, and where a multitude of Legionaires had lodged.

I was determined to provoke a scene. In the buffet line, I asked a group of these goofy-hatted degenerates how in the world they could validate inviting someone of Bush’s degenerate status?

“You have your opinion, we have ours.”

“Mine hasn’t resulted in the death and mutilation of maybe a million innocent people, yours has!”

“Well, thank you very much. Now do you mind if we just eat our meals peacefully?”

“We’ll be waiting for you tomorrow,” I concluded. Or, I thought I had.

About a three-quarters of an hour later, while walking in a corridor, my lady friend and I were stopped by a member of the Secret Service and a Washoe County Sheriff’s Office deputy. They weren’t interested in my companion, they were interested in me.

And I wasn’t about to back down. I wanted a scene, one that might provoke a news item the next day. I told the Secret Service I wasn’t stupid enough to actually threaten that yellow-bellied, GDMFSOB upstairs. (An appellation the Secret Service agent whispered his mother might agree with.) I asked whether they wanted to deny me of my First Amendment guarantees: free speech, and assembly and to petition for grievances? The agent said he had no such intention, and simply wanted to let it go at that, “case closed,” “situation handled.”

But I didn’t. I began calling the rather obese folks in the stupid hats all manner of foul names. George had invited the vaguely defined threateners (I know, I know: no such word, but in this post I’m the decider.) to “Bring it on.” I was there, pointing at the ridiculous-hatted miscreants, “C’mon Mutha F**kers, I’m here right now, bring it on!”

The next morning I was there, outside the convention center. This one fat-a**ed fool wearing one of those comical caps gave us the Italian up-yours salute, then headed right for me. Oh, I was thinking, “come here baby.” But he tripped right in front of me, with a little assistance form my extended right foot, and commenced to roll into a senior woman holding a protest sign, knocking her down. The local news camera crews didn’t catch my trip, though they did his tumble into the woman. The local police were there in a flash, pulling the guy aside for questioning and an extended hiatus in the hot sun that caused him to miss George’s speech.

What has any of this to do with the Republican convention in St. Paul?

Everything! You see, I researched the reports of police intimidation of those whose only provable crimes were to try to exercise what has been written with the blood of millions of soldiers and marines and sailors and air corpsmen over the course of nearly two-and-one-half centuries as their INALIENABLE rights. Permit the practice of intimidating preemptive raids and searches, of incarcerating Americans within chain-link “protest” or “freedom of speech” areas alienates what is inalienable. It doesn’t matter whose doing the enchaining or why. To reiterate a truism penned first by Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It matters not whether the tyrant is from beyond our shores or a police officer wearing a badge.

Passing quietly in the face of a threat to American hard-won rights just is not an American thing to do. An entire multitude might decide to pass quietly, to not make waves, to let it pass, but such are US citizens only, not Americans.

— Ed Tubbs