Why do McCain - Palin supporters hate my 1st Amendment rights?

Ok.. that sounds a little inflamatory, but I'm not very pleased with where the neighborhood political discourse has gone. Taking down politcal signs, and calling the cops with baseless accusations is not political discourse. Those acts are the death throes of a democracy if left unchecked. This post may be another mudball thrown, but I've had enough.

If you've been reading my posts, you already know I live in a non-contested state in terms of the electoral map. Our electorates were in play 4 years ago, but this year, it seems Sen Obama has swayed so many voters, that there are no advertisements, few pollster calls, etc. In the end, that just leaves more air-time for the more local campaigns, so I think we're all ready for November 4th. In 2004, it was easy to get your hands on a Presidential candidate sign or sticker. This year, they are not nearly as plentiful. In fact, my folks went out of their way to get us a sign and a car sticker. They are not convinced the polls are right, and feel expressing your political opinion on your bumper and with a yard sign is the right thing to do. To me, it is a simple expression of our First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

So, I accepted their Obama sign and put it in a prominent place on our yard. It is very easy to see when you drive up the street, and it serves as a little reminder that the Presidential election does need your vote, regardless of the polls. Because of its location, though, one of my neighbors who does not support the Illinios Senator, is apparently upset. I'll get to that later. After our sign had been up for a few days, I found it knocked down. I set it back up. The next day, it was down again. I set it back up again. This happened so many times, I lost track.

Honestly, I figured it was neighborhood kids with nothing better to do and didn't give it a whole lot of thought.... until one of my neighbors called the police and told them that someone in my house was taking down their McCain sign. So, they sent a car over and the nice policewoman asked my wife about it while petting my dog. My wife explained that we hadn't done anything and the policewoman asked if our sign had been tampered with. "Well, yeah, sure," she said, and then explained about how often we were finding our sign down. The policewoman's face changed to a "I know what's going on" expression and said she would talk to the neighbor who filed the complaint. We went almost a week without a sign downing, and our neighbor's McCain sign had been moved to point at our house rather than at the passing cars. "That's weird," I thought, when I got home from work and saw its orientation. Whatever. If they want to declare their political leaning to the 2 voters that live in my house, that's great. On Friday, when the small-town paper had a mention of the police call in the blotter, the sign was changed to point back towards traffic. I guess they showed us. Unfortunately, the real story didn't make it into the single "sign tampering reported" reference.

Last night, we returned home from dinner at a friend's house to find our sign down again. At this point, I got upset, but I just resolved to putting it back up in the morning. My wife took one car to church early to help with something, so I had the boys. While they were putting on their shoes, I snapped this picture (the upper picture) of our sign and put it back in the ground. Then, we all piled into the car and went to services. When we returned, our sign was down again on a windless, completely still day. I have a picture of that here too (the second one). In both pictures, my neighbor's McCain sign can be seen in the background, clearly not tampered with, and in the same place - untouched.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. What makes someone so politically bent that they don't realize when they are infringing on my rights of expression? While we were expressing our freedom of religion, they chose to suppress my rights to free spech again? What message are they trying to send to our community, and what message to they think they are really suppressing? I realize they like their candidate, and, that is their right. There's a saying ( the exact words of which I don't know) that was attributed to one of our country's founders: I ma not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight by your side for your right to express it. I wholely embrace that sentiment.

Clearly, my neighbor, the McCain-Palin supporter does not. To me, this casts their campaign in a even more negative light. From the hate mongering rallys to the ad blitz of doom, this really shouldn't surprise me, but it still does. We live in a small cul-de-sac filled neighborhood that has barbeques, (Christmas) carol sign-alongs and July 4th parades. I really didn't expect this from a neighbor. I realize that neighbors are, at their root, just people who live near you. I think its more than that, and that's why this treatment is so surprising.

I can't wait for November 5th. Then, we can all take our signs down. But, now that the line has been crossed, how do we get to a point of cross-party acceptance? Can we move on from this election as a united nation, or will the hate-politics of the last 8 years truly be the lasting legacy of this Administration?