August 16, 2005
Meet Larry Northern - Idiot
Meet Larry Northern. Mr. Northern is a resident of Waco, Texas and considers himself a patriot I'm sure. He is an officer in a gun club, and possibly, though not necessarily a veteran. He is my age, so he is at least old enough to have faced a draft in the 60's unless he joined of course.
Mr. Northern was arrested Monday night for:
...allegedly driving his pickup truck over wooden crosses erected near the roadside campsite of Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has brought her antiwar protest to President George W. Bush's Crawford doorstep. A row of the memorial crosses, which carry the names of U.S. soldiers killed during the Iraq war, were destroyed when Northern, a Waco resident, allegedly drove his truck (which was dragging a pipe and chains) over them.
Now, I think Ms. Sheehan is being used by the media, and she is more than likely complicit in the circus going on outside of President Bush's Crawford ranch. But, she is also an American, and American's have the right to freedom of speech, they have the right to be safe in their person and they have the right to redress the government if they believe those rights have been violated.
AND THEN THIS BASTARD COMES ALONG AND THINKS HE IS HOT STUFF CRUSHING A BUNCH OF CROSSES AND POSSIBLY ENDANGERING PEOPLE WHO ARE EXERCISING THEIR RIGHTS AS AMERICANS.
What kind of idiot are you Mr. Northern? Did you really think that this is what America is all about? Do you really think that this is what Specialist Sheehan died for? Really?
You sir are an Idiot!
A tip of the GM Chapeaux to The Smoking Gun.
Posted by GM Roper at August 16, 2005 08:50 PM | TrackBackAmen, the world is full of them, at least most of them lean to the left....
bahhh
Posted by Michael at August 17, 2005 12:46 AM
Excellent post, GM. This clown has no sense of rights or honor. Let him sit in jail and think about it!
Posted by Mort at August 17, 2005 01:57 AM
It's too bad that Janet Reno isn't the Attorney General still. Since this guy is from Waco and a little crazy, she would have had him, his family, and his friends all killed. I don't justify his actions, but nuts attrack nuts.
Posted by Woody at August 17, 2005 10:30 AM
Kudos to you sir, for being the first right leaning person I have come across in the past five years to not politicize an issue that is important to the root of all of us as Americans, by shaming Larry Northern for his violent, unAmerican behavior.
More people on the right can learn from your valiance. ;)
Posted by banana at August 17, 2005 01:49 PM
I appreciate "banana's" comment, but I also wanted to take a look at his site.
Banana, you make mention of me not "politicize(ing) an issue that is important to the root of all of us as Americans..." but your site if sull of left leaning (to use your phrase) stuff that does just that. You think Bush is deliberately enriching Saudi Arabia.. you buy the chickenhawk/yellow republican crap and state blindly that John Roberts supports terrorists?
Banana, you need to rethink your attitude about conservatives in general and not paint us with such a broad brush.
Posted by gmroper at August 17, 2005 02:39 PM
To say nothing of the wanton and intentional desecration of dozens of American Flags by this loser. I guess "our flags" are less sacred than "their flags".....
Posted by buzzards27 at August 17, 2005 04:01 PM
Another argument in favor of changing Waco to Wacko.
Posted by Mustang at August 17, 2005 09:47 PM
Mrs. Northern is a professor at Baylor with a special focus on Christian living. Perhaps he should talk with her.
http://www.baylor.edu/social_work/index.php?id=768
Posted by jady at August 18, 2005 04:05 PM
Larry Northern may be (probably is) an offensive doofus, and I can agree that what he did was stupid. But let me play Devil's Advocate here, if you will.
You make some assumptions I have yet to see supported by fact.
You make the assumption that those demo crosses were protected speech. "Speech" in the First amendment, as its author and those who debated its adoption and wording all agreed, means speaking actual words with one's mouth, NOT displays of objects or behaviors or "expressions" be they grunts, squeals or whines. Certainly, in recent times, other things that are NOT speech have been held to be "speech" by courts that you, I believe, generally (and rightly) would assail as activist courts MAKING rather than interpreting law.
That activist judges say it is so does not make it right.
But if their display was protected speech, why was his action in destroying that display not also protected speech? The two were of similar types of so-called "speech." (Not that either would have been recognized by the Framers as such.)
Sidebar: I seriously doubt those crosses set up at Camp Mother Sheehan were there to "honor" those who died. given Sheehan's own words about our troops committing genocide and her other hateful pronouncements, I think it fair to say that those crosses were being used by her as a ployâ€â€Âand a seriously twisted one at thatâ€â€Âsimply to gain more attention and claim a moral high ground she does not own. Northern was still idiotically detructive. End sidebar.
Next, you imply that the people present were in some danger from Larry Northern's bizarre and stupid behavior. That may have been so, but the crucial question is this: was anyone actually hurt? I've checked several news stories, and none of them mention any people being hurt. Given the media sideshow around Saint Sheehan, I scarcely doubt something like that would be missed.
No physical damage to persons? No endangerment, except maybe in the lame minds of whiners. A miss is as good as a mile.
Sure, put Northern in jail (or better, on a chain gang working roadside cleanup... in Crawford, TX.) He's a cretin, and he ought to be slapped silly, if that weren't redundant. And he ought to be made to pay property damages, if genuine damages there were. But assailing him for violating Sheehan's rights is... bordering on silly, IMO.
Still, the _rest_ of your blog's still a great read... Maybe enter this post in the Carnival of the Vanities next week?
*LOL*
Posted by David at August 18, 2005 08:10 PM
Hey, GM. I may need to hold off posting comments past 10 or so. The comment above came off a tad snarky. Or maybe just a wee abrupt. Take it for what it's worth, eh?
Posted by David at August 19, 2005 07:56 AM
There was property damage in that a car was sideswiped. Some people had to dodge out of the way. Of course, I'm sure you'll just decry these reports as liberalism and anti-Americanism, which is usually what Bushbots revert to.
Larry Chad could have been a real man: he could have walked up and said his piece and starting pulling up crosses. But no, that would have exposed his tubby flabby self to real human beings who didn't agree with him. He may have even feared for his sorry ass, even though the people at Camp Casey were not likely to lay a hand on him unless he started swinging crosses like some sweaty fat Rambo in the throes of PTSD.
So instead he barricades himself inside an ol' pick-em-up truck and sneaks there at night, just to show them how big and strong and powerful the right is, mowing down crosses just to show them durn liberals what real American power is all about.
And yes, this is definitely a snarky comment.
Posted by Vanna LaRoche at August 19, 2005 05:27 PM
Vanna, you need to learn the difference between snarky and rude. I don't think any of my conservative readers or my liberal readers agree with what Larry Northern did, he is an idiot as I said.
Who, by the way is Larry Chad? If you are going to be snarky, at least get the doofuss's name right - - LARRY CHAD NORTHERN!
Painting conservatives with a broad brush as you did, is perhaps just as bad as when liberal folks complain about being painted with "radical lefty" or "socialist/commie dupes" eh?
Cheers
Posted by GM Roper at August 19, 2005 05:47 PM
Vanna, to whom are you writing. ...sneaks in to show the power of the right? The post is written by a conservative and a lot of the comments are by conservatives, and they're not defending Northern or welcoming him into the conservative tent. They're criticizing him.
Nuts are nuts..whether like him or Sheehan, but the left is claiming her.
Posted by Woody at August 19, 2005 05:48 PM
A couple of comments....
When the left does this stuff, it is rarely mentioned. When the right does it, they can't shut up about it. The guy was out of line, for sure. I don't recall the press making a big stink about how Clinton/Reno handled the Waco debacle. Talk about real crime - that was it. I've been to the site and seen the ruins (you could walk on top of that buried bus where people had died). But out left wing press was more interested in right-wing militia groups and religious cults (and that operation was certainly an unhealthy cult).
As far as freedom of speech/1st amendment - that is a Constitutional restriction on the federal government restricting speech (and via the 14th amentment, other government levels). Private citizens can go further in their actions in this regard (as long as they don't run afoul of statutes punishing folks for infringing on the civil rights of others - a favorite trick the feds use for avoid the double jeopardy provision in high profile local crimes).
As for the mother of the soldier, she should be ashamed. I suspect were her son alive, he would be very upset at her use of his death for blatant political purposes that are at odds with what he had VOLUNTEERED to do. The media should go back to the latest victim of the month club (although this Aruba thing has lasted ages!) and not give publicity to these demonstrators who represent few Americans (to the disappointment of the MSM).
Posted by John Moore at August 20, 2005 11:53 PM
Despite all the disgusting chauvinism (nationalism) the U.S. exhibits, from the outside it looks more and more that country is irreconcilably divided, up to the point of slowly but certainly marching towards a civil war.
Give it a good financial crisis. Give it oil costing more than, say, 120$ a barrel. Give it a few lynchings, dollars being dumped by all foreign nations, a yanquis having to work in the local Mac franchise, the pop of a housing bubble, a few corporate schandals, maybe even another little natural disaster...
I'm sure you get soldiers occupying big cities. Detainment camps. Government buildings on fire. Massive looting. Riots. Race riots. Poverty riots. And that'll lead to right and "left" going into a feeding frenzy and attacking each other.
It'll be the end of an empire US, and good riddance.
Posted by dagon at September 21, 2005 05:12 AM
Cindy Sheehan is a clown. If you guys want a good laugh read her blogs on michaelmoore.com I have a hard time feeling bad for that puppet
Posted by Mark Mitchel at October 9, 2005 12:16 AM
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Posted by Allison Trump at January 25, 2006 07:22 PM
Larry is a Viet Nam veteran. I remember when he went and when he came back.
Posted by jane russo at March 7, 2006 04:31 PM
