ESPN’s Monday Night Football at BW\u2019s:\u00a0\u00a0these are code words.\u00a0\u00a0Monday Night Football, is the NFL game on Monday night. This one was the New York Jets versus the Cleveland Browns (the Browns won 23 to 3.)\u00a0\u00a0BW\u2019s<\/em> is a sports bar, Buffalo Wild Wings<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a cold beer, chicken wing place, with tables packed in.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s set up close, to watch the game, cheer or boo the teams, and end up in conversations with strangers about that \u201cterrible call\u201d or \u201camazing catch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But BW\u2019s<\/em> was relatively quiet on this Monday night, despite the Browns playing.\u00a0\u00a0There were plenty of empty tables.\u00a0\u00a0Jenn and I were on the way home from visiting a friend in the hospital; cold beer and wings sounded good.\u00a0\u00a0And, after all of my nephew\u2019s hype, I was interested to see the Browns.\u00a0Hard for a Cincinnati Bengals fan to admit, but he\u2019s right, they\u2019re pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We sipped our beers, and waited a while for our food.\u00a0\u00a0The game came on, and three men met at the table immediately beside us.\u00a0\u00a0Of all the open tables in this bar, of all the BW\u2019s<\/em> in Columbus, these three men decided to meet here, the younger one at the end sitting closer to me than Jenn was across the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then the lesson began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The older guy started the conversation (I guess at sixty-three now I need to qualify that he was significantly older than his two acolytes, but significantly younger than me.) He started the \u201cTrump Doctrine\u201d litany; all of the Fox News talking points supporting the President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now it\u2019s impolite to listen to another table\u2019s conversation, but when the seating is so close it\u2019s difficult to avoid. And when the conversation is held at the \u201cteaching\u201d level, emphasizing points with firmness and authority, it\u2019s difficult not to hear. Jenn and I found it difficult to concentrate on the wings or the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the voice of a priest indoctrinating the Chosen, he talked about Trump\u2019s taxes, how a private businessman shouldn\u2019t have to let the government know what he made.\u00a0 Then it was onto North Korea, how Trump silenced Kim Jung Un, and the strategy was obviously working.\u00a0\u00a0It got louder when he intoned on Beto O\u2019Rourke revealing \u201ctheir real secret plans\u201d with \u201c\u2026Hell yes, we\u2019re going to take your\u2026\u201d but he substituted the word \u201cguns\u201d for Beto\u2019s \u201cAR-15\u2019s and AK\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two younger men made affirming comments, about how \u201cthey\u201d are so wrong about America, and how \u201cwe\u201d will show them in the next election.\u00a0\u00a0The laughed at a government that would try to save energy by keeping home thermostats at 78, quoting from a local TV ad for home insulation.\u00a0\u00a0And they took pride in American \u201cenergy independence\u201d with the President releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve to compensate for production lost by Saudi Arabia due to a drone attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo Sayeth the One <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Free Speech<\/h3>\n\n\n\n