The uncivil anti-civics warrior
By: Charles Haines
Tags: Personal Experience, Conservative Politics, Local Government, Racism, Civil Rights

I witnessed a canvasser being harassed yesterday outside a grocery story while he gathered signatures for a ballot petition.

A little local history is needed for context here: The City of St. Louis where I live is independent of the county surrounding it. The state of Missouri enacted this division following the Civil War, during which the city backed the Union, the county the Confederacy. To this day the division between the two is deeper than just administrative. This incident I’ll relate also had a racist undercurrent. The canvasser was African American; the heckler was a White “Euro-American.”

I’ll call that joker a “Concerned Citizen” (CC). He stood in front of the trashcan outside the door. As I came out, I wanted to throw my disposable mask in there. Not only did he block the trashcan, but he did it with his mask pulled down. Already he charmed me. Sans cart or bags, the CC showed no hurry to get to his shopping, nor to rush his groceries home. No, he seemed to be there to enjoy some morning vagrancy. By contrast, the canvasser didn’t interfere with anyone’s shopping.

The petition was hardly concerned with hot-button issues. It would stop the City’s Board of Alderman from gerrymandering its own districts. Secondarily, the proposition would impose greater accountability to their campaign donations. I signed that exact petition from the same canvasser on Sunday.

While a woman at the table signed the paper the CC called, “He’s not even from the city. He lives in the county. He’s being paid to do this. Be careful! Read what you sign.” She stood tensed. The gnat had promoted himself to “Creepy Concerned Citizen,” (CCC).

From those warnings, I determined either the CCC was suspiciously well informed about this canvasser and his campaign, or he guessed recklessly about it from Fox-News-level ignorance. The first being sinister, the second was far more likely. “Spot the Conspiracy,” isn’t my normal game, but this incident was unique in my experience.

I walked back over to the pest to throw my disposable mask away. From behind my cloth mask, I called him an ass. He demanded I repeat it louder, so I did. For a second I thought there might be trouble, but I read hesitancy as he sized me up, coming to the conclusion the trouble would be all his. (No, I’m not a badass, nor a fighter. I just have a big frame.)

I told him the canvasser was practicing his First Amendment Rights. The CCC claimed that petitioning was restricted to the parking lot, and not the walkway, which again, wasn’t being blocked at all. How he got the idea canvassers were only allowed on the blacktop, I don’t know. During our argument, the canvasser didn’t say a word. The CCC demanding the signature taker move into automobile traffic made no sense, but neither did a self-appointed referee calling “technical fouls” on First Amendment Rights. I can’t say for sure if racism motivated this disagreement, but I have my suspicions.

After some futile back and forth, I finally said, “This is the store manager’s business,” meaning the CCC should butt out. He insisted he had told the manager, who would move the canvasser. Either CCC was lying or the manager fed him a red herring hoping the troublemaker would forget about it.

Then, an employee then came out. A glance his way told me management appointed him to referee. I already had said everything necessary to the twerp. I’ll be irate if I find out canvassing would now be disallowed because someone got peeved about a routine exercise of rights that didn’t involve taking off reloading or catching COVID.

Speaking of which, it only hit me later that I thoughtlessly pulled my cloth mask down at one point in the argument, while the CCC wore his down on the chin. Am I going to come down with COVID because of this jerk? What a menace!

Republicans have endorsed using “concerned citizens” as volunteers to be sure we aren’t practicing our rights wrong. I think conservatives are fired up about the Texas abortion vigilante law. They want to police people, for fun and profit. I guess they’re okay with a bully government as long as they’re the enforcers. Pretty soon we’ll all be jumping off the sidewalks when we see a red-hatted MAGA coming, regardless of the traffic.