I had fought the urge to write a column on the lawless hoodlums in Southern Oregon. I told myself that no good could come from it and that it looked like it was going to quietly subside. I was going to write my next column on athletes and coaches – until I saw an Associated Press picture of protesters in Southern Oregon holding American flags as if they were mascot banners for colleges.

I do not pound my chest about it, but the American flag means something to me. I served in the Army post-Vietnam. My father-in-law was in Vietnam and Korea. My parents were in WW II. My grandfather was in WW I. And for those lawbreakers to wrap themselves up in the flag is disgusting. They are not patriots. They are thugs and hooligans, armed insurgents and domestic terrorists. They are cousins to the rioters in Ferguson, MO, those who protested against Wall Street, the anarchists who have stopped traffic on Bay Area freeways and bridges under the auspices that their race matters (what about the rest of us?) and the spoiled college brats at UC Davis who refused to disperse and then were made folk heroes when they were maced.

To say that the Constitution somehow empowered these knuckle-draggers to do what they did is a sacrilege. It cheapens the sacrifices of all who have fought for and died to protect America and its values. The Constitution guarantees, “…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Nowhere do I read that land can be occupied illegally – be it on a wildlife refuge in the middle of nowhere or the middle of the Bay Bridge. Imagine for a minute that the Wall Street protesters had been the ones to take over the wildlife refuge. The Bundys and their ilk would have been the first in line to “get those hippies off of our land.” And if you think otherwise, then you are lying to yourself. 

I worked at Lawrence Livermore Labs for a few years in the mid 1980s. For a couple of years before I went to work there, protesters would shut down the main entrance to the Lab on Good Friday to protest nuclear weapons. It was a pain in the rear. But the protesters thought it was a joke. They would sing protest songs as they were arrested, go to Santa Rita Jail and then be released.

Then one year while working there with Good Friday approaching, as I would drive past Santa Rita Jail (it used to be right alongside I-580) I noticed some big army tents going up in the fields alongside the freeway. I thought it must be for National Guard exercises, but could not understand why there would be drilling over Easter. Little did I know.

Sure enough, come Good Friday we had protesters. They were arrested as they chanted their protest songs, taken to Santa Rita, booked and not released. They were held over the weekend in those tents and brought before a judge on Monday. And it was a hot weekend, too. So the next year, there were not near as many protestors at the Lab. 

What lesson can be learned from that? A little deterrence goes a long way.

I have the perfect solution for those who need further tutoring into what is or is not peaceable assembly. The next time a group of ne’er do wells get together to blockade a thoroughfare or occupy land that is not theirs and refuse to disburse when given a lawful order to do so, a low-tech solution exists to remove them in a matter of minutes: just bust out the water cannons.

I know there will be outcry as to the water hoses that were used in the South during the early days of the Civil Rights movement, but this is not the same thing. Those poor people were assembling peaceably and the redneck lawmen ignored the Constitution and acted as they saw fit. Think how much damage would have been prevented in Ferguson if water cannons had washed the streets clean. And for those wanna-be Rambo types who think they can illegally arm themselves and ignore the law, I would have a machine gun mounted next to the water cannon. 

Like I said, a little deterrence goes a long way.