I was reading Bob Hoge's article on what went down during the Pride Parade in Fort Worth, Texas, and was just as angry as everyone else at the threat from a police officer to street preachers to hand them citations for "offensive speech."
I became even more concerned, however, when a second police officer more or less reinforced what the first officer had said, though it seemed he didn't have the same ire in his demeanor as the first officer did. He was doing what he was told, it seemed, but what he was told to do is somewhere between outrageous and unforgivable.
For those who haven't seen it yet, the video below shows a female police officer threatening to hand a ticket to a street preacher at a Pride Parade for "offensive speech." As you know, the Constitution has a lot to say about that.
Or maybe it doesn't, and what it has to say is short and sweet: "The people can say what they want."
The threat was to cite them for "disorderly conduct," but as is pointed out, this has to be accompanied by the "conduct" part, and the street preachers weren't exactly harming anyone, doing property damage, or waving their junk at children, which, I guess, is way more forgivable nowadays than preaching the love of Christ.
On behalf of the largest police news outlet in the world, we're officially calling for the resignation or termination of this officer IMMEDIATELY.
— Blue Lives Matter (@bluelivesmtr) July 9, 2026
A female Fort Worth police officer was caught on camera threatening to ticket a retired federal law enforcement officer and… pic.twitter.com/PIcvnyJlCs
The fact that this happened in my home state, which is supposedly one of the largest bastions of freedom in the U.S., made me angry on a personal level.
But it also reinforced something I've been saying for some time, and that's the attack on your rights is far more subtle than you think.
Ask yourself this: What would've happened if the police officers hadn't run into a street preacher with a camera and an understanding of the Constitution? What if it were some random person who doesn't know any better and believed that they could, indeed, face legal punishment for speaking in ways that offend people?
How often do you think that happens a day here in America, and you just don't hear about it?
My guess would be that it happens far more than you think.
Our rights are like America itself in that if you attack it directly, you'll suddenly find yourself at the tail end of a losing battle before you think the battle has even begun. A direct assault is more or less impossible. To get a right removed from the Constitution takes so much time and legal loopholes that attempting to get something removed is hardly worth the effort.
If you want to defeat America, you have to do it from within and slowly. You have to subtly convince more and more people that the country is evil and not worth maintaining through media, universities, and trends. You have to make people forget what the USA is, what it stands for, and define it only by its faults until the people have no pride in it and no desire to uphold it. You get cheers when you say things like "we're going to fundamentally change the country" instead of the angry reactions and resistance you would without the furtive manipulation.
This is also how you make people give their rights away. You vilify some of them, like the Second Amendment, but for the others, you just operate as if they don't exist. You use pressure and intimidation (such as threats of citations for offensive speech) to make people believe they aren't actually protected by anything.
The hope is that soon, people will forget they have them. They won't fight for them when threatened, and might even scoff at their rights because they've been vilified so effectively. The erosion of the memory of our rights will have been so quiet and subtle that there will be enforcement that defies it that won't be fought because the people won't remember they have a tool to fight for it.
Then, one day, if the devil has his way, those rights will be dissolved in Washington, either to complete silence or to raucous applause. Either way, the job will have been done effectively, and the long campaign will finally have accomplished its end. You will no longer be free officially, but in truth, you wouldn't have been free for a long time because you were told there was a cage around you and you never thought to see if there was for yourself.
That's the hope, at least.
The strategy to combat it is simple. In fact, it's being done with these officers.
Raise hell, call for firings, hold people accountable, and make sure everyone knows that these rights are still here and protecting us all. Be legally vicious about it if you have to.
