Where Freedom Reigns

Chapter 24

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

The joy and good fellowship of the Christmas holidays in the nation's capital ended abruptly on the second day of the New Year when a large and boisterous group of protesters began their march in front of the White House. The group was mostly made up of middle-aged white men and women. By their dress and manner, it was apparent that most had only climbed the first few rungs on the ladder of society. But unlike those higher up the ladder, these were the kind of people who were quite happy with their lot in life. They didn't spend their time dreaming of what it would be like to be rich. In fact, whenever one of their numbers won a lottery, they usually didn't quit their jobs, although they might come in late a little more often. 

They were first-line supervisors in manufacturing plants, over-the-road truck drivers, auto mechanics, and various tradesmen. The very bedrock of America. They shopped at Walmart, ate at Applebee's, bought their cars second hand, and went to church every Sunday, as long as it didn't interfere with the broadcast of the big game. They were the kind of people that the classes above them would never think of inviting to dinner but wouldn't think twice about calling them on Christmas night to fix a plugged drain. They asked little from society and they gave little back to it. For the most part, they were simple, peaceful citizens, living out their lives on the other side of town. They were cheerful in their ignorance of the finer things that money and higher education could offer. Completely willing to live and let live. Until that is, someone tried to take something away from them. 

Then, unlike those higher up the ladder who were constrained by decorum and the rule of law, these people took whatever steps they felt were necessary to protect their families, their friends, and their possessions. These were not the kind of people who would allow a murderer of one of their own to go free because of police ineptness or a legal technicality. Such a person would soon be found floating face down in a river, and the police would never in a million years break the code of silence in the victim's community. It was crude and simple justice. And it worked. 

On that particular morning, several hundred of these people, many of whom had driven all night to be there, were marching outside the seat of American power to protest the most serious of all thefts, their freedom. The theft of liberty had taken place two months earlier and two thousand miles away in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, farther away than most of them had ever traveled in their lives, but to them it was every bit as serious and threatening as if a convicted pedophile had moved next door to their local elementary school. And they were simply not going to stand for it. Period. 

They chanted, "Freedom. Freedom. Freedom," as they paraded up and down on the sidewalk directly in front of the house they had always been told belonged to the people. However, the concrete street barricades, spiked iron fences, and armed guards that stood between them and the man who supposedly served at their pleasure, somehow didn't support that notion. As they marched back and forth, their faces were being scanned by automated high throughput screening cameras perched on poles high overhead, and the telltale characteristics of their faces were being converted into algorithms and compared to the database of known criminals on the Federal Government's Granite Shield quantum computer. 

"What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now!" they shouted, but their efforts were largely wasted, since the President was away on a fundraising trip to the west coast, and the television networks had very little interest in covering another peaceful protest outside the White House. For the most part, the other people walking along the sidewalk on that brisk, sunny January morning in the nation's capital weren't particularly upset by the demonstration. Many were civil servants heading to their jobs after the Christmas break. They were accustomed to that stretch of heavily fortified real estate being used as a platform for peaceful civil disobedience. Unfortunately, on that particular morning, the demonstration was about to become anything but peaceful.