On January 15th, 2026, Afghanistan War veteran and Murfreesboro resident Adam House signed up to address the county commission about trash in the downtown area. And that’s exactly what he did.

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At a recent Rutherford County Commission meeting in Murfreesboro, the agenda moves along as expected. Budget items. Procedural motions. Public comment.

Then the chair calls the next speaker: “Mr. Adam House… It appears that his topic is ‘trash in the downtown area.’”

Mr. House steps to the microphone and introduces himself. He says he has lived in Murfreesboro for roughly fifteen years, on and off. He notes that this is the first time he has ever spoken publicly at a county meeting. He identifies himself as a disabled, retired combat veteran of the 173rd Airborne Brigade who served in Afghanistan, now using his education benefits at Middle Tennessee State University. He thanks the VA for helping him through multiple surgeries. He thanks the community.

And then he explains why he wants to talk about trash.

“I’m here to talk about this boring subject of trash in the downtown area,” House says, “because the little things lead to bigger things.”

He begins in general terms. Garbage left behind invites more garbage. Neglect compounds. Disorder breeds more disorder. It’s a familiar argument, the kind heard in city meetings everywhere, framed as something he learned in the military: when you let trash pile up, it makes people feel like it’s acceptable to keep piling it up. He then widens the definition.

Using a quote often attributed to Mark Twain, House reminds the room that politicians “are like diapers and need to be changed often, for the same reason.” A former minister, he then turns to scripture from the Book of Matthew: by their fruits you shall know them. “And we all know,” he adds, “when you’ve got rotten fruit, you need to throw it out.”

From there, he points just outside the building, toward a Confederate monument standing on the public square.

“If you go downstairs right now and walk out here on the square,” House says, “on the very corner of this square is a large hunk of metal trash to a Confederate traitor who murdered the real heroes of the Civil War who stood against slavery. And that kind of trash invites more trash.”

House connects the continued presence of Confederate symbolism to the normalization of white supremacy, calling it “the trash of our country’s original sin” and noting that countless people gave their lives fighting against it. When that kind of trash is allowed to sit in public view, he says, it signals permission.

Permission to participate in programs like 287(g), to invite federal immigration enforcement into the community.

“When we have that kind of trash sitting around,” House says, “it makes people feel like they can go ahead and participate in a program like 287(g) and invite Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Gestapo into our community to terrorize American citizens.”

He calls it wrong and warns that when ICE “tries to visit terrorism on the American people,” they will be met with resistance from people in the community.

All of this, House makes clear, is still on topic.
He signed up to speak about trash.

There are many forms of protest and activism, and there’s room for most of them. But there’s something especially effective about using the system’s own rules to force a conversation it would rather avoid. House does not disrupt the meeting. He follows the rules, signs up in advance, stays within his time limit, and uses public comment exactly as intended. What he demonstrates is how much room actually exists inside the process when people choose to use it. He expands his topic without misrepresenting it, using the language of municipal housekeeping to talk about history, power, bigotry, and policy, applying the phrase trash in the downtown area where it belongs.

Mr. House’s remarks land at a moment when federal immigration enforcement has escalated into something far more dangerous than bureaucratic policy enforcement. It is now marked by violent raids, warrantless entries, aggressive arrests at private homes, deaths inside ICE detention facilities, and even the fatal shooting of American citizens by federal agents in U.S. cities.

House regularly publishes video commentary focused on extremism, civic accountability, state power, and U.S. political history at IndependentThinker.substack.com.

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Reported and edited by TCS staff.