Quick update: I'm off to get arrested for asserting my constitutional right to assembly peaceably at the N.C. General Assembly and may not be back for quite a while. Y'all just carry on without me, jaaa? (There, I got both my Great Plains and Tar Heel idiomatic cadences into one sentence. The world shrieks when I put my linguistic lutefisk into that jar of boiled peanuts.)You've undoubtedly heard about N.C. Sen. Thom Goolsby, who wrote this editorial columnin the Chatham Journal on Friday, June 7. A few choice excerpts:Sec. 12. Right of assembly and petition.
The people have a right to assemble together to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the General Assembly for redress of grievances; but secret political societies are dangerous to the liberties of a free people and shall not be tolerated.
The circus came to the State Capitol this week, complete with clowns, a carnival barker and a sideshow. The “Reverend” Barber was decked out like a prelate of the Church of Rome (no insult is meant to Catholics), complete with stole and cassock. All he was missing was a miter and the ensemble would have been complete.Most of us here in North Carolina have a response one way or another to this petulant screed. Here, below the Orange Swirl of Brilliant Chaos, is mine.Several hundred people [actually, more than 1,600 on June 3 alone] – mostly white, angry, aged former hippies – appeared and screeched into microphones, talked about solidarity and chanted diatribes.
[...] Never short on audacity, the Loony Left actually named their gathering “Moral Monday.” Between the screaming, foot stomping and disjointed speeches, it appeared more like “Moron Monday.”
