If you would have asked me twenty years ago (circa 2000) if I would have attended a political demonstration as a demonstrator, not as an intelligence officer, collecting against the crowd, I would have laughed at you and said that you have to be kidding. But think back. In 2000, the World Trade Center had not been attacked. In October 2001, nobody on the planet would have thought that America would have a president named Barack Hussein Obama with deep communist roots and a serious love of Islam who would take office in 2008. If you’d have predicted it, everyone would have laughed at you and would have told you that you needed to have your head examined.
But elected he was and I became one of the throng of Tea Party people who showed up, to various events. I met Palin and Breitbart out in the desert at Searchlight, Nevada near Harry Reid’s house. And those are the circumstances surrounding the formation of Virtual Mirage, because I wanted a digital record that the nation did not go along with the Obamanation. If you go back and read, that was the text in the early days of this blog. And there were a few bloggers who I met back in that day such as Woodsterman and Old NFO. We read each other’s blogs and when we all happened to be in town, we met in person and we found out that we all had the same thing in common. We had a love of country and were concerned where things were headed. Many of the people were veterans, who had put it on the line. 
Then came Donald J. Trump, and I attended a Trump rally at Costa Mesa, CA. Just one in a crowd of thousands. Bear with me because there is a point to this. In all cases, the conservatives (so-called “astroturf”) who gathered together were polite, thoughtful, picked up their trash, didn’t hurl insults, and just wanted their voices to be heard. It’s just the way the Second Amendment protest in Richmond went down yesterday. When I was sitting at the Trump rally in Costa Mesa, waiting for the great man to speak, the people next to me went and bought me lunch at the venue. Not because they had to or because I asked them for something for nothing. It’s what decent people do.
No cars were overturned, no shops were looted, nobody was injured, no insults were hurled. They were Americans, concerned about where the country was headed. Most of them had never done this sort of thing before because the core of the nation had not been under attack. Even given the unpopularity of Obama with the people, nobody called for his death, they didn’t mock him. They simply disagreed, and Congress was shocked. As I mentioned, we were referred to as “astroturf” because we couldn’t be a grass roots movement. We were too clean, too well groomed, we took off work to be there and went back to work when the demonstration ended. We made our own signs. Nobody bussed us there and paid us to shout. 
That’s what happens when America responds to injustice. It wasn’t a gathering of filthy inner-city people, who are paid to protest, leave trash, loot, burn and so forth. The media is perplexed. The politicians are confused. How could a group of admittedly heavily armed people gather to express their discontent and not injure anyone? It’s because they are decent people, who are also free people, and want to keep it that way. It is the essence of what America is. They are not parasites, they work, and earn for their families. They are good neighbors, they are the teachers and firemen and policemen and mechanics and insurance salesmen and so forth who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths. They are not the Hollywood elites. They’re mothers and fathers and grandparents who have a stake in the outcome. They represent all races, all faiths, and economic groups.
HOPE
Demonstrations give me hope for the future of the nation, and gatherings of this sort strike fear in the hearts of the progressives who work so hard to damage the essence of America. People are not mocked for their differences, they are embraced as fellow patriots. And they didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton no matter how much the corrupt, lying, media shilled for her. If you showed up with a sign that indicated that you disagreed, nobody hurt you. They’d just ask you if you’re ok.
Imagine somebody showing up at the Second Amendment rally in Richmond who carried a sign that said, “Take my Guns! – NOW”. People might laugh at the fool and they might say, if you don’t want a firearm, you don’t need to buy one. It’s about choice. But that is not what they’re doing at the Virginia Legislature. It’s not about choice. It’s not about rights, that began 244 years ago. It’s not how the progressives think. It is not part of their agenda. Decent people disagree with the collectivists, and the communists, and the donkeys. And they gather peacefully.

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41 COMMENTS

  1. The media's been pretty quiet about the business in Richmond. They were really hoping for klan hoods and riots on the streets. Sorry to disappoint you folks but it was rational people and not leftists.

  2. Modern Media/Propagandists: Push a false narrative to foment panic and hate to their [current] target(s)…it's called projection. They push what they WANT people to believe is true instead of reporting on actual facts and truth. But when it doesn't pan out as they predetermined they simply move onto another false fantasy.

    The modern media, including all it's "personalities who think they are important, needs to be ignored…they are soulless.

  3. You can disagree without being disagreeable.The (P)regressives can't, or won't, accept this. Two that we graduated high school together no longer speak to me. I've never raided my voice to them or called them disparaging names and respect they do, and have, put it on the line. That is not reciprocated.

    Will the way the Richmond rally went down change any of their minds? I doubt it. They are fanatics.

  4. "Decent people disagree with the collectivists, and the communists, and the donkeys. And they gather peacefully."

    Until they don't. Efforts to alter voting rights, regarding recall, district apportionment, etc in Virginia , to ensure a "forever Dem" majority will not sit well with those who will then see that not only are their protests ignored, but any option to change the elected officials is gone as well.
    I guess when one spends their years associating with manipulating, lying, maneuvering,parasitic political scum that the danger potential of successful, creative, entrepreneurial, hard workers is lost.
    15 minutes on youtube looking at what hobbyists in America do for fun should terrify them.

  5. Rabble-rousers prefer, and are used to dealing with, people who are easily excited and don't think things through. As such, they can't wrap their minds around people who don't subscribe to that way of life.
    Frank

  6. The Dems were probably surprised when they tried to get Antifa to go there and start some fights, and Antifa declined on the basis that you'd have to be an extra-special kind of moron to start a fight with 15,000 people armed with rifles.

    They're going to need more-idiotic useful idiots…
    -Kle.

  7. The only people who want to keep black people down are in power in Richmond. The only people who wear black face and hoods these days are in the Virginia legislature and the Governor's mansion.

  9. The way things went down won't change the mind of the would-be tyrants and the lemmings who take money from them and execute their will.

  10. Until they don't.

    And that is the other side of the coin.

    USGOV has spent a lot of effort training men and women to do things (elsewhere) and they leave the service but that education and experience in foreign wars remains.

  11. Decent, hard working Americans arn't the same people who can't decide which restroom to use. And that irritates the donkeys.

  12. The whole Antifa (punks who screw with frightened unarmed people) crowd would have been made short work of at the Virginia state house. They were wise to decline.

    I've been inviting Antifa up to the Arizona Highlands to riot for quite some time now. There is no cell service so we can't call for help. Deputies are a two hour drive away. Just a bunch of helpless white people for them to terrorize…who own back hoes.

  13. Having watched videos of mob action in the Middle East, it makes me wonder if that is part of the reason why the Left appears to be so enamored with Islam?
    Frank

  14. Many of the leftist commentators on CNN and MSNBC are blatantly homosexual. Those mobs that they love so deeply would literally tear them limb from limb if they showed up. I find their lack of desire to go and physically be there in the midst of the chanting (filthy) mob to be cowardly…

  15. I remember it well. It was Claim Jumpers in Buena Park and The Squeeze In in Truckee.

    I went to a "Gathering / Demonstration" in Carson City, NV when the Tea Party was brand new. It was on April 15th and we were demonstrating against ObamaCare. We may have succeeded if Chief Justice Roberts wasn't being blackmailed by the democrats.

  16. Well said and I'll echo the above — until they don't. That in mind, the gun grab may prove a bridge too far.

    Let's hope things will change at the ballot box.

  17. LL, if you don't mind telling me, how close to Overgaard are you? Thinking of getting out of Nevada and moving to that area? Thx

    tworesqu7….locked and loaded

  18. +1, or sooner. The progs have been shown the sword(s), now bring out the pen(s) to collect signatures. A bill has already been introduced to change he petition requirements–

    lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+HB842

    Once again, the progs only answer is to double down.

  20. Yup…The Borg Collective that assimilates everything in it's destructive path.

    Schiff doesn't like the fair and respectful Senate rules for the Sham-peachment he created so is publically accusing McConnell of "covering up the President's misconduct". Projection on steroids…offered by a soulless twerp who was most likely stuffed in a locker because he was always a twerp.

  21. It seems they've fallen in love with the words they speak, and think that if they use the right words they can make themselves the leaders and create their own reality – ie, magical thinking.
    Frank

  23. I'm actually on the rim, so higher and about 55 miles in a straight line. If you drive down off the rim, through Strawberry, Pine and Payson and east on Hwy 260 it's farther. The rim is the obstacle. The other route would be for me to go east and then south through Snowflake. and that's farther. I'm about 15 minutes from Clint's Well.

  28. Great post, LL.

    I started blogging in June of 2010. Not sure if I had attended a Tea Party event yet or not. The first one I went to was in Redondo Beach, *on* the beach, and we left the area cleaner than it had been before the event.

  29. Decent people protest that way. If things go way too far (The British march on Concord), then they break things in such a way as to make the King aware, 3000 miles distant.

  30. Anonymous

    I went to look at some property in Overgaard about 2 years ago and had a long talk with one of the realtors in the area. He said that the area is one where there is a fair concentration of the kind of folks that don't want to be known, found or have close neighbors. Coming from him it made me take a second closer look at the town and surrounding lands. While I would not feel out of place in that I am pretty self sustaining and have enough skills to do pretty much anything that needs doing, I concluded that my wife would not adapt. Do your diligence before leaping. Am still considering other locations in the AZ highlands, we shall see if it comes to pass.

  31. of which I am but one. but I think I could raise a company pretty easily just from the guys I served with in a 50 mile radius. take us about two hours to drop in on the govna. wonder if he's thought about that?

  32. we came in peace, THIS time. sadly the bozos won't take the hint and we'll have to sanction them. they are feverishly filing bills bent on preventing us from voting them out or recalling them. "those that seek to prevent peaceful revolution guarantee a violent one." JFK.

  33. What is amazing is the number of supposedly pro-gun bloggers who are still saying yesterday was a fluke, a complete outlier, this can't ever happen ever, the stupid gun-larpers are gonna cause trouble, Hur-duhur…

    Even after over 20 years of right-wing protesting.

    So we should just all sit on our hands and ask the bad people to please stop…

  34. Yep, early Tea Party in DC, and yes, when 'we' start going to rallies, you know it's serious. The number of veterans that are quietly communicating is getting interesting too. What got my attention yesterday was the VA Sheriffs who were there in uniform AS PROTESTERS!

  36. Send an e-mail to larry.lambert@mac.com. I'll share what insight that I have on the area. I can't really address the Heber/Overgaard area because I haven't spent any time there, but I am familiar with other locations.

  37. You never really know what the individual legislators are thinking. It will take some time for things to sink through. Maybe the legislature will ask for a larger bribe to keep it going?

  39. I don't think that was lost on the legislature. New Mexico Sheriffs have made things known as well, and the movement is spreading. Veterans almost never protest. When they do, the lawmakers should take notice.

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