GunsAreOK came up to DC from Roanoke VA to attend the weekly Friday night Walter Reed and Saturday morning Olney MD freeps. In total Guns pulled a 4-fer (4 freeps in 2 days) by also hitting the Whitehouse Friday and Saturday afternoon. Trooprally pulled a 3-fer. I did the Saturday 2-fer. Following is mine and Guns's report on our Whitehouse freep for persecution of border patrol agents Ramos and Compean and Texas Deputy Hernandez.
Special thanks to Trooprally for taking all the pics. He couldn't stay long. But maybe he'll chime in later with some observations.
BufordP's report:
I'm a veteran of Whitehouse freeps going back to late 1998. After President Bush's 2000 election victory I didn't think I'd have another occasion to freep the Whitehouse until the day another liberty grabbing tax-and-spend socialist moved in. But here I am demonstrating against a President who I thought was on our side.To me, regardless of your position on protecting the border, it is appalling what is happening to our border agents and law enforcement officials who are doing what they believe is their job.
As "law and order" conservatives we want to see justice served even if it means prosecuting over zealous officers using excessive force in the apprehension of criminals. But as time goes by it becomes more apparent that the "excess" has come at the hands of our own Justice Department prosecuting officers just doing their job.
U.S. Border Agent David Sipe is fortunate that after 6 years he's finally won an aquittal. But what of border agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos? And now Texas Sheriff's Deputy Gilmer Hernandez? These men shouldn't have to wait so long for President Bush to do the right thing.
Not a whole lot of traffic walking/standing outside the Whitehouse gate. There were 4 other solo/small anti-Bush protests. You'll see "Barking Wave Man" pictured at the bottom of this page. One guy stood off to the left side of us with a poorly made sign that said something about Republicans stealing food from the poor. You can see him standing next to the streetlight behind the fellow Guns is talking to in the lower left photo. Then there was the guy wearing a Bush head mask and devil costume.The first guy I talked to was from Texas. He was familiar with the Compean, Ramos, and Hernandez cases. I had my sign turned at that time so that he only saw the "Border patrol: Do your job, go to prison ?!" He didn't have any problem with the message until later when he walked behind me and saw the El Presidente Jorge poster. That's when he slowly went ballistic. Asked me if I was "native-American". I said, "Yeah! I was born in St. Louis." As he walked away he turned his head to shout and accuse me of being anti-immigrant and racist. (Hit and run) I yelled, "You're a freakin' liar that you gotta spin that I'm anti-immigrant. I'm anti-ILLEGAL immigrant!"
Shortly thereafter a Korean gentleman came up to me shook my hand and patted me on the back several times saying he was in complete agreement with me. He said he was anti-"illegal" immigrant. He told me he served in the South Korean Army. He was now a U.S. citizen. I told him that I had more respect for guys like him than I did for the half of America that doesn't appreciate that this is the greatest country on Earth.
A young guy in a suit had been standing out with us closeby for quite sometime not saying anything. I guess he wasn't too sure about these two lunatics standing outside the Whitehouse gate protesting the President over the border. He listened intently to the conversations we were having with the various passersby and between ourselves and eventually realized...yeah, these two guys are crazy...but he decided to talk with us anyway.
Found out he was from Richmond VA. His name is John. I didn't want to get too personal exchanging last names or asking what he does for a living. I gave him our freeper handles. Gave him a brief history of FreeRepublic.com and the D.C. Chapter. He was very receptive. I expect we recruited a new freeper.
GunsAreOK's report:
Many of you have no doubt seen the series Band of Brothers, a well-produced and well-acted account of the experiences in Europe during World War II of Company E of the 106th Airborne. One of the episodes, Why we Fight, details the liberation of one of the concentration camps. I would like to title my experience at the White House on 2/24 Why we Freep.
It's nothing new for us freepers to have at least a few members of the general public say something to the effect, "Thanks for being here and I agree with you 100%." Similarly, we can expect others to disagree and to express their disagreement with varying language and various degrees of mastery of the facts of the issues.
All of this happened yesterday as well, and until I met one particular gentleman, nothing was out of the ordinary. My companion at this point during the afternoon, BufordP, told me to step over and talk to well-spoken Chinese man. I complimented him on his very good English. It turns out that the man is from the People's Republic (Red China to me) and is on a tour of the United States. He said, and I paraphrase as closely as I can, "You live in the greatest country in the world to be able to protest as you do. I'm a member of the Communist Party (he implied he really doesn't agree with this ideology) and I wouldn't dare stand outside 'The Leader's' house and hold any sort of a protest sign, yet you are free to do this." I don't recall how I reacted but since yesterday, I've thought of little else. This one experience has made all of the hours of standing in the heat, cold, and rain worthwhile. It can seem at times that our efforts may not have a great impact, but I've learned that that is hardly the case.
I asked the gentleman if it were true that, in China today, it's possible to be a capitalist and make money but that a person could not speak out on political matters. He said that this is indeed true. All too soon, he had to leave with his tourgroup. I said that I hoped he could remain in our country if he wished to do so--clearly our country could use many more (legal) immigrants like him.
|
|
||
|
|
