“Do we live in a country where if you speak out of turn the result is three men assaulting a woman?” –Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, after being cuffed and dragged out of a Coeur d’Alene town hall meeting for using “free speech” that the local GOP leaders objected to.
Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl is an American hero for showing us that there is no difference between those who perpetrate evil and those who idly watch it happen.
So, last weekend, Dr. Borrenpohl went to a public town hall meeting as a constituent of the Republican legislators for her district. As the lawmakers crowed about their deeds, Dr. Borrenpohl yelled from the crowd. Her words quickly brought down the wrath of off-duty Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris and three plain-clothed goons. The men set upon her, forced her to the floor, zip-tied her hands, and viciously dragged her out of the public forum.
What was her sin? Why did the local GOP order their goons to violate her constitutional and fundamental rights? She yelled the wrong free speech: “Women are dying.”
Women ARE dying in Idaho because we have been stripped of our right to access fundamental medical care. For telling the truth, Dr. Borrenpohl was assaulted and, get this, charged with battery and trespassing. (Thankfully, the Coeur d’Alene police department and Kootenai County Prosecutor reversed course and have since dismissed all charges against Dr. Borrenpohl.)
But what about the REST of the folks sitting in that auditorium? Those who clapped and cheered when she was violently forced face-down on the floor and sat on by two paramilitary men? The goons, of course, did what goons do when a government turns them loose on its people. BUT WHAT OF THE ONES WHO SAT IN SILENCE? What of those who cheered like this is all a damn sport? Let me remind you what Abraham Lincoln had to say:
“Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”
And, for the women who cheered this assault on, I share the sentiments of the late-Madam Secretary Madeleine Albright who said:
“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
Nazi Germany in the late 30s and early 40s had Mein Kampf and Musselini’s Italy to guide their descent into darkness. Today, Idaho elected GOP officials have a plan called Project 2025.
What does Project 2025 look like for Idaho? It looks like government-sanctioned attacks on women who won’t behave. It looks like partisan mobs cheering while those women are dragged–shirts torn, zip-tied, bruised and helpless–by brutish men without pity or compassion or independent thought. It looks hellish.
When will the silent majority use its voice, stand up, and start slapping down those folks that are cheering the loss of our fundamental rights and freedoms?
When will we STOP letting GOP leaders and lawless Sheriffs attack us for using “free speech”?
As I have previously stated, this is not the time to play nice. This is the time where we all need to be standing up for our fellow citizens and for ourselves. We NEED more Dr. Borrenpohls. Now more than ever.
Who’s with me?