Guest blogging: Craig Dudley
About 3:30 yesterday (5-8-07), I was sitting in the sauna. All the rocks I have moved sometimes get to me, and this was a day without having to go out to work. The dogs started telling me I had visitors.
My sauna is outside. I saw four men walking my way, so I went into the house and wrapped a towel around myself.
The first one showed me his Secret Service i.d. and introduced my inquisitors -- two Secret Service and two local sheriff’s deputies. The deputies wore black bullet-proof vests and stood to the side while the skinny white SS boy asked most of the questions. He was the bad cop. The bald-headed black man was the good cop and pleasant.
Turns out someone had accused me of threatening The Decider. This, and, "By the way, have you ever threatened to shoot any four-wheelers riding through here?"
They repeatedly asked if I had made any threats against The Decider. Did I have any firearms and such? I told them I was tenth-generation Quaker, if that meant anything to them. I also made mention that this was the sort of stuff we were taught in school back in the fifties and sixties happened exclusively in
The good cop told me that times were different now.
They probably asked me at least four or five times if I had any intention of doing in their boss. I finally asked them how many times and ways they needed to hear my answer.
I suggested that the allegation and this visit must have happened because of my letter-writing to the local newspapers.
They asked me what I thought of The Decider. I said I thought him a fool and would rather see Barry Goldwater as president. The good cop asked me what problem I have with The Decider. "Everything he does," I replied.
Despite what you might assume, I think yesterday's visit was proper and fair police work. The authorities receive many tips and must check them out. It's been going on for a long time, not just with this administration. I suspect that almost all such reports are false, but if there is one in a hundred that's real, it's worth the effort. The four men were polite and did not come barging in with guns drawn (which happened, with terrible consequences, under Nixon's "no knock" anti-drug busts, some at wrong addresses, leading to shooting deaths and woundings, as well as deep trauma to kids and others waking up to guns at their heads and some agent in scruffy street clothes shouting at them).
These sorts of things are happening these days, though, as the good cop told me. Times have changed. Our protectors have removed our protections in order to save them.
1 comment:
This is fantastic ethics and fantastic writing. Craig Dudley is a canary in a coal mine. The way I see it, soldiers don't defend America's liberty, they work as mercenary armies for the large corporations. The real defenders of freedom are the Craig Dudleys of the world, who speak truth to power.
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