Closed streets and helicopters. The whole military routine. All over a video.
I know Kokesh courts trouble. But this is ridiculous. And coming on the heels of the latest TJIC mess, my Inner Paranoid wonders if there’s some concerted effort going on.
(H/T MWD)
The Adam vs the Man news release.
While the manner of the arrest was budget-justifying C.O.P.S.-theater overkill, isn’t getting arrested kinda implicit in the whole “civil disobedience” thing?
Rosa Parks knew she’d be arrested, too.
This doesn’t look like it is arrest for civil disobedience, rather it looks like a way to shut him up and “gitmo” him so he can’t challenge the government power brokers and elitist any longer.
We have been at a point for a while now where if they perceive you to be a threat they simply SWAT your house, plant some contraband, trump up some charges and railroad you right into a cell to shut you up and get you off the scene. Just wait, many more of these will happen in the coming months and years.
Trumped up charges? Planted evidence? Hard to imagine. The initial crime allegedly happened in D.C. under auspice of the park police. Federal crime, federal land. Why didn’t they use the U.S. Marshal’s? Why are they seeking state charges for ‘shrooms and guns instead of harsher federal charges for having a loaded gun in a national park? I’d expect that the park police don’t have jurisdiction outside of the national parks. I’d guess that a federal prosecutor decided not to press charges based on a spurious video and the park police (working for whom I wonder) decided to get help from the local virgina cops. I wonder if they found those ‘shrooms in the kitchen with the dried fruit.
“ I’d guess that a federal prosecutor decided not to press charges based on a spurious video and the park police (working for whom I wonder) decided to get help from the local virgina cops.”
I know, right? I’d really like to see that warrant myself.
Tam — Agreed. Kokesh clearly courts arrest, as did Rosa Parks, MLK, Gandhi, and many others. It’s the helicopters, battering rams, closing off neighborhoods, and kicking down doors that’s the BFD. VERY BFD. Hell, even the infamous “knock in the night” Gestapo didn’t feel the need for all that. (Granted the Gestapo didn’t have helicopters. Otherwise …)
Kokesh is a very polarizing character.
Back a few years ago when he was running for some political office in New Mexico, one of his staffers contacted me and asked for an endorsement and offered an interview. I wrote back and said I only needed one question to tell me everything I needed to know: Did he support the absolute right of everyone to own and to carry any kind of weapon they wanted, everywhere they went, in any manner they saw fit, without ever asking permission of anyone? The staffer never responded. I mentioned this to Kokesh a while back and told him my initial impression, based upon that staffer’s non-response, seems to have been wrong and I had gained respect for him since that time.
I still have respect for him. As long as I don’t believe he initiated force or stole from anyone- which I don’t believe he has done- then I consider him on my side.
Theatrics has its place. Everyone will do what they think is best and everything can work at liberty from a different angle.
For those who claim he is a government mole… well, no one can do anything that gets noticed without someone making that claim.
I can’t say agree with Kokesh on too much, but I respect the fight he is waging in the name of liberties. He certainly invited this raid, but the “helicopters, battering rams, closing off neighborhoods, and kicking down doors” as a response is way over the top. He may have missed a golden opportunity. If I had been him, I’d have cameras running all over my place. Seeing our own county’s Gestapo in action replayed on all the news stations would get him more attention.
I agree G.W.F.
And for the cameras that is an excellent idea as long as the data is real time and uploaded real time to a secure location or two. Whole house monitoring is decently inexpensive these days like this. I bought a small single cam system a while back (cheap and simple, not suited for a task like that) after I had some lawn equipment stolen.
Does he not have a dog, or did I just miss the part where these buffoons shot his dog?
The best thing would be for Adam to get jail sentence so he can loudly be a martyr for the cause of liberty and the rest of us don’t have to suffer the slings and arrows for his very unhelpful agent-provocateur publicity stunts. Kokesh is just another of the establishment’s vast menagerie of useful idiots.
So Kokesh is a divisive figure and lots of people don’t like him. (I’m not exactly an admirer, myself.) But should he be arrested using tactics that were developed for hostage situations and capturing escaped murderers? Should be shrug that off just because military force is being used against someone we don’t like and not (yet) against us?
DF — “There were eight adults inside of the home and one pet, she said. ‘Luckily Adam’s pit bull Baloo was safely secured in his crate at the upstairs of the home.’”
I’m surprised being crated stopped them, especially given the home-invasion thuggishness the entire rest of the raid displayed.
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/10/witnesses-police-kicked-gun-rights-actvist-ransacked-home/
“But should he be arrested using tactics that were developed for hostage situations and capturing escaped murderers? ”
I certainly don’t think so.
30 to 40 cops? Hmmm, this kind of overkill, much beloved by the state, definitely sends the wrong message: the state minions are boobs and cowards. This incident reminds me of what happened to Julio Buitrago…
Well I can admire his zeal. When you spout off with a “by any means necessary” You just invited 30 to 40 Armed Lawdogs into your home. “By any means necessary” to me screams Nutjob!
“‘By any means necessary’ to me screams Nutjob!”
Hmm…I’m wondering how it should read. Personally I’m a terrible Pragmatist myself. IOW I do NOT believe that the ends justifies the means. IOOW I’m sympathetic to the distaste of “by any means necessary.”
Still, the question is open. Presumably the whole statement says more or less, “This crazy state-sponsored thuggery must be stopped…by any means necessary.”
So I’m wondering how to reword the phrase to make it less nutty. Or perhaps it’s wrong that the state-sponsored thuggery must be stopped. But if that’s not wrong, then we’re left with, “This crazy state-sponsored thuggery must be stopped…”
…what? “with words”? “politely”? “persuasively”? What, exactly?
Me, I’d like to say, “…in a manner consistent with life as a civil, non-thuggish human being.” But clearly that hasn’t worked and there’s no reason to suspect it’ll ever be effective. Bullets trump words, so what are the logical means to achieve the desired end?
Or, if you prefer, could there be some means necessary to stop someone threatening your very life, that would not be proper to take?