A MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTEST

 There is a Democrat politician in Illinois who has been arrested for obstructing ICE. She claims that she was arrested for practicing her 1st Amendment rights as an American. I have seen the many videos of this idiot blocking ICE vehicles and tangling with ICE officers. In one video she is gloriously thrown to the ground like a sack of potatoes by an ICE officer. This gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I hope she gets some serious prison time out of this but I will believe it when I see it. Since the George Floyd riots the news media and Democrat politicians have tried their best to blur the lines between protesting and rioting. As a former protester I want to help bring some clarity to this issue. If you stand peacefully on a sidewalk with a sign, or are voicing your opinion without breaking the law, regardless of whether I agree with you or not I will support your right to protest to the death. If you resist a police officer who is simply trying to enforce the law you have lost me. If you don't like the law then have the courage to put pressure on the state or Federal legislatures to change the law. Burning property, looting, graffiti, blocking roads, violence of any kind and trespassing is not protest.

As a former protester I know a little something about the issue. I protested at an abortion clinic in the 1990's. We held up signs on a public sidewalk and prayed. We didn'tt trespass, block roads or entrances. This didn't stop one of the soulless clinic workers from almost running us down with her car, however. In 1999 and 2000 I was heavily involved in the Tennessee State Income Tax Protest. I wasn't a paid protester like many if not most of the Democrat protesters today. I gave up off time from my job as a tire builder at Bridgestone-Firestone to protest. We stood on the sidewalk holding signs and circled the Tennessee State Capital blowing our car horns. I broke the horn on my truck blowing it so much. On several occasions I had to work out shift swaps in order to be at a protest. This is why you won't see conservatives protesting as much as the left does. We have real jobs. The issue of a state income tax was too important, however; to stay home. I saw every kind of person there. Blue collar workers like myself. Some wearing their work shirts with their names on them. Truck drivers, business people in suits as well as housewives pushing baby strollers. Unlike the anti Israel, anti Trump and anti ICE protests there was very little chance of violence and we would have condemned any if there had been. Unbelievably I have seen several women bringing small children to the Anti ICE riots thereby placing their children in harms way.

The closest that we ever came to what could be called violence was on Tuesday July 12, 2000. The Democrat state legislature tried to sneak a vote by us late in the afternoon after most people had gone home from work for the day. My job was tough. I had to be at work the next morning at 0600 and work a 12 hour shift building tires. I was not in the mood to hop in my car so late in the afternoon and drive from Murfreesboro to downtown Nashville but it was one of the best decisions of my life. I was inspired as I passed caravan after caravan of anti tax protesters smiling and waving signs. Tears flowed from my eyes when I saw thousands of protesters surrounding the capital. This was democracy in action. The Democrats had closed the gallery and they weren't letting anyone into the capital to view their chicanery. Thousands of people were beating on the doors all around the capital building demanding to be let in. A rock was thrown through a window but no one seemed to know who did it. All I know is that I didn't see anything. 

 Because we arrived in such great numbers the Dems lost their nerve and failed to pass the income tax. This protest was the high water mark and although it would take several more protests to drive a dagger through its heart the income tax issue was dead. Over the next few years we voted out the Democrat legislature and we now have a super majority of Republicans in Tennessee. The man leading the charge on the income tax was the RINO Republican governor Don Sunquist. I voted for that traitor only because he ran on a no income tax promise. Four days after his inauguration## he came out in favor of it. Because of our "mostly peaceful" protest Tennessee is one of the few states in the Union without a state income tax today and one of so many reasons why people want to move here from the Communist blue states. This was a protest. What the Democrats are doing is unlawful. I believe the Tennessee Tax Protest was the actual beginning of the Tea Party Movement.