IDs? IDs!

IDs?  IDs! We don't need  no stinkin' IDs!

We have talked about this over the blogs and most recently at Friends of Jake.  Well, I just got one more reason to really dislike the climate we are currently living in. 

My son, is a Petty Officer and a nine year veteran of the Navy.  He was recently selected to go to Naval  Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.  While the rest of his family are registered Democrats and have been most of their lives, my son is a registered Republican (what would you expect from a Navy type?), not really the crazy type, but a staunch Republican.  He has been to the California Republican caucus and has "rubbed elbows" with the Firestone family, an aggressively conservative group.  My son is overall, an old style republican, fiscal conservative and a liberal when it cvomes to most social programs.  He believes in many principles currently ascribed to the democrats, but alas, I just cannot seem to get him to our side.

At any rate, he is headed to the OCS school in Rhode Island and is driving.  For some reasons unbeknown to his mother and father he left late and is covering about 1,000 or so miles a day.  Hard but doable.

So, in Illinois, he is stopped by a law enforcement officer (do not know if sheriff, police, highway patrol or what have you) and my first thought was well, 1,000 miles a day, must have been stopped for speeding.  Guess what?  That was the furthest thing from the truth.  He was pulled over under suspicion of drug running!  First, if they ran wants and warrants they should find him as a member of the armed forces.  His car, a Chevy Blazer, has all the required military stickers.  My son is 6'9" tall, certainly someone who can "hideout" in a crowd.  The officer said he was stopped for at least two reasons.  First, his license plate, the state of registration, is Washington.  Apparently the officer believes that a huge drug ring  is operating out of Washington state and they suspected my son was among the bad guys because he had a Washington plate.  But hold on, that is not all, the officer said "you were not driving on I-80 and so you were suspected of drug smuggling for not being on a major interstate.  What?  My son had decided to take a scenic route just for fun and that made him a suspect in a drug operation?

This is a George Bush nightmare!  One cannot drive on a scenic byway with the state of Washington license plates without being suspected of drug smuggling?  Where in the world did this all come from?  Back in 09/11/01 the then President (GWB) decided that fear was the operative word so that he and his cohorts could bomb the heck out of Iraq trying to find Osama Bin Laden.  He then sent troops to Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden.  Now apparently, Osama Bin Laden may be riding in a Chevy blazer having Washington license plates.

My son has been deployed in the Gulf during the current disagreement.  He loves his country more than most everything and thinks freedom is a good reason to fight. His dad agrees with him -- maybe he learned it from me -- I hope so.  But what he cannot do, I can. 

I am outraged by what happened to my son.  I am so angry I am beside myself.  How can we, a free country and a free people, allow the police to just stop any old person they want to, search their car, and then make up some cock and bull story about drug runners in Washington taking back roads to mule their stuff?  That officer ought to be ashamed of himself -- in fact that officer should have, at the end of his shift, turned in his gun and badge and any other property of the state and resigned.  He would be free, of course to choose to join the skinhead group of his choice -- courtesy of my son.