(Posted originally in the Republican forum on ChristianForums. Edited to make the Sisters of Mercy reference clearer.)
We just got nearly killed by George Bush.
I’m writing from Milepost 36 on I75 northbound in Ohio. This is the first exit I’ve seen in about 20 miles which wasn’t blocked off. The freeway overpasses have all been blocked off, whether or not they were attached to the freeway. Every parking lot you can see from the freeway has had police cars in it.
And, because of this, we nearly got creamed by a car that couldn’t stop fast enough for the sudden transition from 70mph freeway to a dead stop in the right lane, and we had to pull into a still-moving traffic lane without enough warning. We were lucky not to get hit and, well, squashed.
So.
Reasonable precautions? Does it make sense for the buses with the President’s staff on them (was he even there? I don’t know) to be surrounded by 20+ police cars, fire tricks, and ambulances, and to have this disrupt all travel within twenty miles? Is the danger that real? Is it Americans in the middle of Ohio that are the danger?
I’ve seen a lot of people on this board argue for the limitations on non-Bush-supporters at various events where Bush might be on the grounds that liberals are “likely to support terrorists”. I find this to be a terrifying sign of a retreat from the rationality and constrained government powers I associate with the Republican party, and a move towards the extremes of government power we like to associate with the Communists.
Indeed, when it was Clinton doing the “free speech zones”, they were rightly condemned.
I dunno. I just know I don’t think I can vote for another motherfucker in a motorcade, backing up traffic for 8+miles (we’re still seeing the traffic jam on southbound I75), keeping people from going home, and otherwise bringing a portable police state with him. This is not my America; this is not the land of the free, this is not the country I want to live in.
I would like to see a Republican who stands for freedom and limited use of government powers. I would like to see someone who doesn’t create circumstances that have resulted in more ambulences rushing past us, lights flashing, in the last half hour than we saw in an entire 26-hour road trip on the way out.
The danger is not that great; the man is starting to be paranoid. This needs to be stopped. Kerry is, at best, anyone-but-Bush. Fine by me.
Comments [archived]
From: Loki
Date: 2004-09-27 19:03:12 -0500
And what’s great is that the towns that host El Presidente have to foot the security bill. I know Marquette, MI seems generally pissed off at the cost of having him. And my pistol of a grandma said she wouldn’t go a block to see Bush (and she lives a block from where he was speaking). I told her she wouldn’t be allowed to see Bush.
From: Lory
Date: 2004-09-28 16:48:42 -0500
It’s a small world, and it smells bad/I’d buy another, if I had/Back, what I paid…
Great band, great song ^___^