All right, so before going to bed I noticed C-SPAN was posting some embeddable clips from the RNC, so I thought I’d snag one of my favorite moments of the night.

Not only do I love it because “order” got disrupted during McCain’s speech (it needed some excitement), but it’s also great because dissenting voices was actually heard! Well, heard as the two protesters were dragged off by security. I couldn’t really tell what they were saying.

At least we know that not everyone approves of the Republicans in a way that is part of history–McCain’s acceptance speech was interrupted by dissent.

That’s cool. THAT is America.

As an independent voter I like it when one side is forced to listen to another (not the only other, mind you). The irony here is that while this was my favorite moment of the final night of the RNC, it was also one of the more depressing (though, I missed the 911 tribute–I’ve heard that was terrible).

The reason this moment is so depressing to me is because of how the convention delegates reacted to the protesters. They started chanting U!S!A!U!S!A! over and over. They were bludgeoning her free speech with the mallet of patriotism. Sorry, chunky metaphor there, but hopefully you get the point.

Now, I know what she did was disrespectful to McCain, but does it really serve anyone to squash dissent and disrespect with more disrespect? And using the chant U!S!A! in that way–doesn’t that mean that you’re sort of using the country’s name in vain? Maybe I’m overstating it, but at the very least, using the American Flag to gag dissent misses the point.

I knew there was a good metaphor in there somewhere!!

Check out more vids of the RNC at rnc08.c-span.org/