Illegal Protest

On Tuesday of this week, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the suicide of a good friend, Ali Jacobson. I met Ali through fighting illegal immigration and she had become a good friend and ally in this battle to turn our country back to the right path.

Ali was active in the NRA and the Montgomery County Republican Committee. She was a strong, self-made woman who started her own property management business. You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Ali because she could be fierce if she felt you were not acting in her best interests.

Ali attended a couple of rallies that I organized as well as several local rallies - from the first Voice of the People USA rally in Hazleton to their Hershey rally. Sometime in the early summer of 2007, her health affected her ability to attend rallies. She suffered from a serious tooth infection most of the summer of 2007 and sadly, she never really was able to get back to her prior activity level.

In the fall of 2007, things took a turn for the bizarre and she had some dizziness, disorientation and a possible seizure while driving. Months later it was discovered she had a brain tumor which was removed in late March.

Because of this illness, the state decided to take her driving privileges away so she was unable to drive her car for a total of 6 months - starting back in November or December. She had been managing pretty well considering she was unable to drive and she had been working on getting her driving privileges back through a judge the last I had spoken with her.

What strikes me as tragic is that, so many times we hear of illegal aliens driving drunk *repeatedly* and they are apparently still able to drive. Does nobody take away THEIR driving privileges? Yet we have an American citizen who had one possible seizure and they take away her privilege for SIX MONTHS? This sort of sticks in my craw about Ali’s story.

I’m not sure how many of you stop and think about how not being able to drive might affect your life, but I think the helpless feeling may have gotten to her ultimately. That and also the constant repetition by her “doctors” that the brain tumor was “the worst kind of brain cancer” and that “most people don’t live longer than 6 months with this kind of cancer”. Nevermind that she was feeling fine and perfectly healthy after her surgery. The doctors still apparently wanted to do radiation.. but she balked because frankly - what were they going to target exactly? The tumor had been removed so… it seemed a bit overzealous in my opinion and hers.

So there are more questions than answers in this very sad event. Dan (Diggers Realm) met Ali also and although he only knew her a very short time, he thought of her as a friend and ally immediately. Read his entry here about Ali.

I will remember Ali as a strong willed, good hearted woman who loved her country and the rights and freedoms we have under our Constitution. She was hoping to move to Alaska and live out the rest of her days in a little town there that she fell in love with after her summer visit in 2007. She had principles and she was disciplined and focused in everything she did. How very sad that she didn’t get to live in that little town in Alaska.. although I would have missed her if she had moved there .. as much as I miss her now that she is gone forever.