Dissent = Treason in Bush's America

Yes, here's America, spreading freedom abroad and curtailing it at home.

Now, let me get this straight: It's perfectly OK for a United States Congressman (Tom DeLay) and a United States Senator (John Cornyn) to advocate the murder of judges who don't agree with them, and it was perfectly OK for former Sen. Jesse Helms to warn a sitting president (Bill Clinton) that if he (Clinton) should travel to Helms' state, he should "watch his back." But if a United States citizen posts lawn signs opposed to Bush Administration policies, she might find herself getting visits from the Secret Service:

Renee Jensen of Elkins, West Virginia, likes to express herself.

She has put up as many as a dozen signs in her yard over the past year, protesting the war in Iraq, Bush and Cheney, and the crackdown on civil liberties.

Some of her signs have said:

"Mr. Bush, You're Fired."

"Mr. Ashcroft, We Prefer Our America Remain the Home of the Free and the Brave."

"Mr. Cheney, What You Sow You Shall Reap. Those Who Destroy the Earth Will Be Destroyed."

"Mr. Rumsfeld, Human Beings Are Not Just Collateral Damages, but People with Hopes, Dreams, Relationships, and Lives to Live."

"O, Evil Doers, Bush and Cheney Are Destroying America. I Cry Liberty and Stand for Our Constitution."

"Love One Another: War Is Dead Wrong."

Her vigorous exercise of free speech has not been well received.

One day in early January, her signs were vandalized.

"I had gone to the movies, and when I came back, all my signs were stolen," she tells The Progressive. "And one had been turned over, and someone wrote, "We love George Bush" on it."

The mayor of Elkins, Judy Guye, tried to use a city ordinance to make Jensen take her signs down.

"Guye had said she believes Jensen's signs pose a potential traffic hazard, since people driving by her house often stop or slow down to look at them," Paul J. Nyden wrote in an article for the Charleston Gazette on January 16. Nyden pointed out that the mayor, "a Republican, had a pro-Bush sign in her own front yard."

Guye backed off.

But those were the least of Jensen's problems.

In the fall, the Secret Service gave her a call.

"They said they wanted to ask me some questions," she recalls. "I said sure. They said someone called them and said I had signs up in my yard that were threatening the President. I said I did have some signs in my yard, but I wasn't threatening the President. The worst I've ever said was that he's an Evildoer. And this Secret Service man specifically asked me about the sign about Mr. Cheney. He said, "That's from revelations." I said, "Yes, I have no desire to destroy anybody. I'm just quoting out of the Bible." His name, she said, was Agent Brian Atkins.

Funny how the Bush Administration regards itself as the architect of the end times as set forth in the Book of Revelation, but when someone dares say that THEY might be burnt in the unholy flame, they get into a snit.

UPDATE: Speaking of the Book of Revelation, it's apparently OK for Pat Robertson to say that so-called liberal judges are worse than terrorists, too:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.
"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."

Actually, Mr. Robertson, it's people like YOU that are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.

(via Atrios)