I live in the heart of red-state Alabama so it was no surprise when our regular vinyl and wire Obama-Biden sign was stolen after only being up in front of our house for just over a week. However, what happened Saturday crossed way over the line. In broad daylight someone dragged our homemade Obama-Biden sign out into the middle of a busy highway recklessly endangering the life of anyone driving by at the time who could have either hit the sign or would have had to brake suddenly or swerve to miss it. Who would have known that the end result would be a undecided voter possibly making up their mind to cast their ballot for Obama?
First, this isn't any regular sign. It is fashioned from a large piece of plywood about four feet wide and has 2x4s on either side as a base so it will stand up straight. There was nothing controversial painted on my homemade sign, just the words Obama and Biden in blue and a big red check mark all painted on both sides over a white background for maximum visibility. Some free-speech hating coward thought it was perfectly okay to just drag it off our property and out onto a busy two-lane highway where the speed limit is 55 mph. Someone could have easily been killed in a automobile wreck if they had hit the sign or had to try to avoid it.
We live on the top of a hill overlooking a busy highway in a rural part of the state. I knew that putting out an Obama-Biden sign was risky since, not only are we vastly outnumbered here by Republicans, but the only location where it would be visible from the road is about 50 yards from our house so it would be easy to steal without us noticing. After our regular Obama-Biden sign was stolen last week my girlfriend and I decided that putting out our only remaining sign would be too easy for someone to grab so we created our own and we made it practically un-stealable. We painted a large and heavy piece of plywood about four feet long and created a stencil for the words Obama and Biden and a large check mark. My girlfriend is an artist so it was no problem for her to also create a stencil for Obama's logo in the "O" of "Obama" and we were proud of the result. So the plywood would stand up, I attached 2x4s on each side that were cut to the same length of the plywood. I'd guess that the entire thing weighs over 50 pounds so nobody could easily snatch it and run away. Our homemade sign had remained down by the side of the road for almost a week without incident.
All day Saturday I had been extra nervous about the sign since the election is drawing near and (if the polls are correct) it is apparent Obama will win. It was around 6pm when I heard a loud noise outside so I leaped off of the couch and looked out the front door to see my sign was now out in the middle of the road. I immediately went outside but I didn't see the creep who did it - only their car which was parked up the road a bit and unfortunately my view was obstructed. I yelled as loudly as I could for them to "get off my property you *expletive deleted*!" By the time I could grab a baseball bat for self-defense and run down our gravel driveway they were gone. I would have pursued them in my car but I had to drag the sign off of the road before some unfortunate passerby hit it. When I had completed doing this it was too late to go after them to try to get a license number. I was understandably furious. Not only was someone trampling on our freedom of speech, they were willing to put people's lives in danger at the same time.
The last thing I wanted to do is give in and remove my sign, but the next day I decided it wasn't worth it to keep it by the side of the road where any anti-Obama idiot could drag it out into the highway and possibly kill someone just because they disagree with my political beliefs. I moved it up on the hill where it is not as visible, but can still be seen. I've been warned by the authorities that I should watch out on election night and in the days following for more acts of vandalism now that our home has been marked as supporting Obama. I am not afraid because those kind of people that would do such a thing are nothing but cowards and they should also know that Democrats have guns too!
I am so disappointed that this is what it has come to in our society that people will do such despicable acts just because of our differing political views. I believe that this kind of hate is a direct result of the inflammatory rhetoric from the McCain-Palin campaign that has stirred up their supporters to believe that anyone who supports Obama must be an anti-American terrorist supporter. All of America should hold John McCain and Sarah Palin accountable for their divisiveness and fear-mongering on election day.
And now for the happy part of my story. As I did when our original Obama-Biden sign was stolen, I called the County Sheriff, not because I thought they could catch the perpetrator, but so they'd know what was going on and would look after the house when they could. The deputy that came out was an extremely nice fellow and we immediately got into a conversation about the election and he claimed that he was still undecided. His concerns about Obama were the tired old falsehoods that he won't respect the flag, etc. so I quickly set him straight by explaining Obama's reasoning for sometimes not wearing a flag pin, and I made sure he knew that Barack's grandfather (who helped raise him) was a WWII vet so there's no way he could have been brought up to hate America. We talked about the economy and I explained how Obama's plan favors the middle-class much more than McCain who wants to give more tax breaks to huge corporations and will leave out over 100 million tax payers. He indicated that he had heard the charge that Obama might be a socialist, and I dispelled this as typical fear-mongering from Republicans and proved how ridiculous a claim that was based on his tax policy and if you simply read the definition of the word it is just not true. We talked about Iraq, and even though he thought it was right for the US to go in there in the first place, he agreed we should now leave. I explained that McCain has no exit strategy for Iraq and Obama will bring home our troops responsibly. The deputy also agreed that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned and I made sure that he knew that McCain has said his Supreme Court nominees would definitely have to agree that it should be overturned and that Sarah Palin believes abortions should be illegal even in the cases of incest and rape. I also told him that by looking at how each candidate has run their campaign you can get a good idea of how they'll run the country. I explained how Obama's pick of Joe Biden for VP was a true country first decision in comparison to McCain's choice of Palin and how their campaign of divisiveness and lies about Obama has been dishonorable.
In the end the Sheriff's deputy gave no clear indication which way he'd vote, but I felt good about setting the record straight about both candidates and discounting the smears about Obama that he was concerned with. It was good to know there are some in my area who still have an open mind and aren't just blindly buying into the propaganda from the right. Will he vote for Obama? I don't know, but I will hope that this ugly incident will turn into a positive with the possibility of one more vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
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