When you look into the career of Adam Kokesh, you realize that he's pretty much just a media whore, who bases his entire schtick on anarchy and "government bad!" In his opinion, governments shouldn't be able to stop people from doing whatever they want to do. That's pretty much the extent of his philosophical depth, as far as I can tell: "you're not the boss of me! I can do what I want!"I'm pretty sure he isn't married: he couldn't share the spotlight. Life with him would be one constant tantrum-fest.
He likes to stage random events where he can demonstrate that the government is power-hungry and out of control. But most of his problems seem to stem from his own inability to accept authority. He's been reduced to social media and YouTube, since, ironically, even Russia Today (a Russian-funded propaganda channel) got tired of his bullshit.
In the larger sense, I guess I have to appreciate that Kokesh is happy to piss off both sides equally - I can't find a mention of him on any right-wing website that doesn't call him "paid Russian agent Adam Kokesh." But in the end, that isn't enough: he's too busy marketing the one product he has - himself - to be anything more than a self-absorbed yutz.
His latest gag, though, is exactly what a disaster looks like in the fetal state: it's a bad idea waiting to blossom into a nightmare.
On the morning of July 4, 2013, Independence Day, we will muster at the National Cemetery & at noon we will step off to march across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.Really, Adam? You design an event to appeal to the paranoid lunatics with a penchant for violence, and you don't see where it can go horribly, horribly wrong? So I thought I'd make a suggestion.
There's a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
The DC Metropolitan Police Department has a contact email address right their on their site, so I used it.
You guys don't get enough respect to begin with, and now you have to deal with an internet-celebrity drama queen and his planned act of "civil disobedience." On behalf of the sane people of America, let me apologize to you. You're put in the unenviable position of dealing with a man who wants to attract paranoid gun nuts to try and start a confrontation.The cops can't let the march happen, and a show of force is just a mistake. I have no idea what they'll do, but with any luck, Kokesh will end up looking like more of a fool than he usually does.
This is an unsolicited suggestion, so take it for what it's worth, but perhaps what you want to do is not treat it as a show of force, but simply an act of crowd control and mass processing.
They've published their planned route, which starts by marching across the Memorial Bridge. Now, that goes right into the mall around the Lincoln Memorial, which is going to make this a logistical nightmare anyway. But if you close the Memorial Bridge off to vehicular traffic and use a lot of crowd-control fences to block them off when they're distinctly in the District, you'll have already disrupted their plans. Then you set up a bunch of folding tables and chairs so that you can process 40 or 50 at a time, and a person with a loudspeaker advising them "Are you aware that you're breaking the law? This is your opportunity to turn around." Then, for any of them that continue, have a smiling officer direct them to the next open table where they can sit for the initial processing.
The Facebook page for the march says that they want it to be "a non-violent event" and "if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting." So take them at their word.
You'll probably want to have some quick reaction teams nearby, but don't have them visible to the idiots. Just professional uniformed police officers.
Borrow a lot of gun racks from the National Guard, and do the minimum processing on the scene, including, obviously, confiscating their weapons ("Oh, no, sir. You'll get a receipt, and you'll get it back when this is all over.") Two-part receipt, with half tied to the weapon and the other half given to the owner. Quick frisk to find any other weapons, basic paperwork at the table, hustle them out of sight into GP Large tents set up on either side, and when you have good-sized group, put them on buses to finish the processing elsewhere.
Mostly, you want to break them into manageable groups, get the ringleaders shipped out fast where they can't make a spectacle (that being Kokesh's big plan), and keep them moving. And anybody who wants to go back across the bridge to Virginia? Don't stop them. Once a few of them decide they don't want to get arrested today and start walking back, more will join them.
Everybody you arrest gets fined, run them for outstanding warrants, check that the firearms are legal somewhere, and let them go. They get the various weapons back after all the checks are done and you know that everything is clean, if the owner goes to a specific location (a National Guard armory, for instance - someplace you can secure that many weapons), Monday through Friday from noon to four. (You're under no obligation to make it easy for them, are you?)
Like I said, mass processing. Break up their momentum. Let their "statement" fizzle out. Anyone who wants to be arrested gets their wish. Everybody wins.
But mostly, good luck.
Of course any attempt at crowd control -- a keep off the grass sign or a no littering sign will be used as evidence of "tyranny."
ReplyDeleteDoes the right to peacefully assemble include doing it with loaded weapons on a public street? I don't fucking think so! This is simply the coward's version of Fort Sumter and Godwin can kiss my ass, this is a Sesame Street version of Mein Kampf. Call in Mein Kvetch.
I love your suggestion of drowning them in bureaucracy but I can't help thinking of water cannons and dogs and Bradly fighting vehicles and vast clouds of tear gas rusting the fine finish off their Wal-Mart weaponry while Wagner plays in the background. I love the smell of tin-horn anarchists shitting their pants in the morning.
Honestly, this neo-confederate, neo-anarchist revolutionary bullshit is so damned depressing it's hard to read about, but it also distracts from the reality of our surveillance state and the erosion of civil rights that's been accelerating since that demonic, satanic Patriot Act the Warpresident/Commanderguy shoved up the national patootie.
A few years ago, that piece of shit Phelps showed up in our little burg looking to educate us about what his pet God hates this week. Simultaneously a very large and very loud group of veterans on Harleys arrived with heavy metal thunder and made their squawks inaudible. Some Deity responded with one of those sudden, massive Florida thunderstorms Noah would have been impressed by, and the loathsome vermin got back in their vans and drove away wet.
I'd love to see it happen again. Actually I'd love to see something far worse happen to Kokesucker and his legion of lamebrain losers, but then I'm dangerously angry these days and shouldn't be listened to.
I have to tell you that I think your suggestions are absolutely the way to deal with this. Carrying a rifle in public is apparently not a crime in Virginia; it is in Washington D.C. The answer is simply to enforce the law in the most non-confrontational way possible, but to enforce the law as it is written.
ReplyDeleteThe one place I would disagree with you is this: presuming that the crime is a felony, the guns should not be returned to their owners, but should be confiscated, as they would be on the arrest of any other felon. What cannot be allowed is for these people to intimidate the government into treating them specially. That will only encourage them to believe that they can get their way through the threat of violence.
Absolutely the guns should not be returned if they are involved in a felony. For that matter, if they aren't registered, they should end up in a massive bureaucratic morass of biblical proportions, which shouldn't be untangled until it isn't funny any more. Plus, a full criminal background search should be conducted, and all proper penalties assessed prior to release.
ReplyDeleteThat's just good sense.
I think confiscating illegally owned or carried weapons is an excellent idea. But instead of selling them back into the system (something that is STILL done in some jurisdictions) they should weld them into a giant wind chime. Let Freedumb Ring.
ReplyDeleteNotably that certifiably certifiable big-hair monster cracked-pot of SB 1070 fame, Janet Brewer. She just signed a bill that would require guns from any gun buyback to be sold anew to brand new potential killers. Doesn't that just elude the entire point of gun buybacks? That guns are too fucking dangerous and evil to be owned by anybody at all. Let alone to be sold at auction.
DeleteI am okay with hunting weapons. I am okay with guns purchased as potential protection by people who are infirm or live in dangerous situations. I am not okay with gun culture in the U.S.A. Not okay with Janet Brewer.
" That guns are too fucking dangerous and evil to be owned by anybody at all. Let alone to be sold at auction."
DeleteEvil? Really? An object is evil? Look, I'm overly prone to hyperbole and letting anger distort my sense of reality, but this goes beyond that. You might just have a phobia, or something close to it and all your opinions related to weapons and the right of citizens to own them stem from that. Your fear does not convey any special, extra-legal power or privilege to interfere with anyone else or the law itself.
Phobia or not, the idea of restraining a law abiding citizen because the stereotype you wish to create includes criminal propensities is right out of the Nazi playbook and no better than any other brand of racism and bigotry.
Florida used to have a clause to allow the police to deny guns to black people or other "undesirables" because they might become criminals more easily than white men. Sorry, that ain't exactly a liberal thought and as a liberal, I despise it.
Every gun owner is no more a potential killer than every guy who opens a can of beer is a potential wife beater, drunk driver or liquor store hold up man. Statistically less, in fact. Every penis owner isn't any more a potential kidnapper and rapist of young women than I or the cop on the corner is a potential killer. Are you aware how unlikely any legally purchased weapon is to be used in a crime in the first place? How much less than it was ten or twenty years ago?
I'm not OK with the "culture" of morbid distrust crying for prior restraints of every decent man and woman within our borders. Yes, there is not only a gun culture, but many of them that aren't really related. You're creating and maintaining a vicious stereotype, falsely identifying every gun owner with an extremist and demanding that people be treated according to your category and I resent the hell out of it.
The constitution is about the limits of power. There is nothing in it about giving the government unlimited power to do any damned thing to make crime impossible and nothing in the real world, not even a police state, can calm the fears of the phobic or even make him admit that the country has been growing safer for many years. Hell, you guys seem to think that arresting an armed mob marching on Washington would be something unusual. Nice of you to suggest it to the cops. I'm sure they never would have thought of it. And as to destroying confiscated property, why stop at guns? Why not the cars and boats and jewelry and houses and cash confiscated too? After all anyone buying a boat is a potential smuggler and drug dealer and someone might use that house to imprison women. . . Oh the possibilities! Oh the danger!
As with the Tea Party, I suspect that the promotion of panic and hysteria has an ulterior motive and if this crazy bullshit is "liberal" I want no part of it.
Take it easy Cap. What I was really referring to was the outlandish notion of preserving weapons that were purchased in a gun buyback. Traditionally these firearms were horded in a great cardboard box and slated for destruction, usually with a grim chief-of-police in charge of the proceedings. Yes, I fervently believe that the less guns that are in circulation, the less people will die. It is my conviction that this is the basic point of gun buybacks. The very idea of preserving them as a valuable resource instead of destroying them is what kills me about extremists like Janet Brewer. I guess “potential killer” is a loaded term, but honestly, guns aren’t good for anything else. They are built for killing or at the very least, threatening people with death. I restate that I have no problem with hunters. My own naiveté and privileged life exclude me from the conversation of dangerous neighborhoods. Yet I truly believe that they would be less dangerous with less guns. People who waste their lives playing around at a shooting range really don’t enter into the conversation for me. I mean, I guess it sounds okay in theory. Women feeling that surge of power. People with no better purpose to use their time and treasure. I think the wounded vet who killed his benevolent mentor is fairly good proof of just how stupid and meaningless that scene is. “I know! What this fellow needs is some good old-fashioned fun at the shooting range!” Maybe the driving range at the local golf course might have been a better idea.
DeleteYou imbue words like morality and evil with great power and perhaps rightly so. These are the great philosophical questions of the ages. Good vs. evil. Morality pitted against immorality and amorality. Forgivable sin vs. mortal sin. Of course a gun is simply a machine and thus cannot in itself carry any of the moral weight that we attribute to the actions and thoughts of humans. But, to me, a gun, other than a hunting weapon, is an instrument of one of the purest forms of evil that exists. Point and shoot. Fall down and die. That may be necessary in a police action or a battle. It may be necessary to protect valuables. I have hated guns since I was twenty-five years old. There was no internet-bloggy fun at that time. It was my own personal decision. I think, as human beings, we can evolve beyond a point of cherishing and playing with guns as a point of aggrandizing our own egos and limit them to any necessary uses that we may incur as citizens. Like, dare I say it? Europe, Japan and the British Isles. I’m not sure if I’m a liberal or not. I always considered myself fairly conservative.
"but honestly, guns aren’t good for anything else."
DeleteUnless you are referring to animals, I don't agree. You don't seem to be aware of how popular competitive shooting is. Although most of my firearms are of Civil War vintage or older, I admit that when civilization seems remote, as during a disaster, it can be comforting to have one. I'm neither large nor young nor equal to a young thug with a weapon and such folks do appear when communications are out and roads impassible. Should I say there's no use being 6 foot 11 and 18 years old other than to assault people? You'd no doubt laugh.
I don't own anything to aggrandize myself. I'm grand enough. I don't display guns or show them to people and these days I don't even shoot them very much. Really I think you're continuing to stereotype gun owners and I can't think of anyone I know who fits that mold. Seriously, my mother used to shoot recreationally and she was Brooklyn born and bred. I still have her shotgun, a 20 gauge Remington which has little use but for trap and skeet.
Anyway I can't reason you out of fear and loathing but only comment that your arguments start with the conclusion.
It's not just a good idea, it's the law. Does anyone really think it isn't? DC requires gun owner licensing, gun registration and open carry is illegal as is concealed carry. A few states have "peaceable journey" provisions allowing out of state travelers to take guns through the state, but DC is not one of those nor would it apply to openly carrying and displaying a weapon, loaded or not.
ReplyDeleteOpen carry is legal under certain circumstances in Virginia, but not of weapons accepting 20 round mags or shotguns holding 7 or more rounds but crossing into DC carrying a gun is going to get you a lot more than a fine and might get you shot if you don't immediately put down the weapon on command. The police would have no choice but to arrest every last one of them. Things could get real ugly real fast if someone hesitates to comply. Perhaps that's what these bastards want; something they can call a massacre so they can fuel the idiotic notion that we're all on our knees to a tyrannical government with no way out but violence.
Nearly half of Republicans think revolution will be necessary at some time. Even more think that this is what the 2nd amendment is about. I see this idiocy as a way to precipitate armed conflict - sort of the same idea Charles Manson had and maybe David Koresh.
I suspect that peace talking Kokesh desperately wants a bloodbath and he can't be stupid enough to think that an armed march on Washington wouldn't likely end in one. If it ever comes off, I'm quite sure this hero will be watching it from a distance, but if there isn't a way to arrest this asshole for conspiracy to commit treason, there sure as hell ought to be.
I'm trying to avoid metaphors about lunatics taking over asylums, but it ain't easy.
And here's my idea -- if the NRA stands behind or assists an armed mob marching on the seat of government, arrest that psycho Wayne and declare the whole organization a terrorist group -- Military tribunals, waterboards, Guantanamo and all. Confiscate their assets, from cold, dead fingers if necessary, and donate it all to mental health research.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, Shaw, but... If you and Ducky stopped setting yourselves up to be shot at over at AOW, that blog would collapse for lack of input. All they would have left would be the Far Right flag and cross wavers and no one to insult. They'd be lost.
ReplyDeleteI left ... I know, Sam wants it to look like I was booted out... because of Sam's constant insults. There's no dialog or debate, if you disagree with him he throws a rock at you. Calling people "bed wetters" is more childish than anything I could have thought up, I have to give credit for that. As for Ms. AOW, she backs him up all the way. She and I have gone a few rounds on that, on my blog.
Do what you're going to. If you love being put down and insulted by a pack of morons, then keep going back.
It appears as though the irrelevant has finally become relevant. Go figure...
ReplyDeleteJust read Kokesh's wiki page. Seems like a dick. He is no doubt a veteran and, by virtue of being in Fallujah when it was hot, a combat veteran. His job description at the time doesn't read, "infantryman, combat, 1 each.". His "Semper Fi,Don't Tread On Me" stance is somewhat bombastic. I wonder how his fellow marines see him; as a warrior or a REMF?
ReplyDeleteHis march on D.C. is an idiotic idea. If he shows up for that one with a copy of the Constitution as his "parade permit" he'll at least have something to read while he's sitting in the processing area.
Seems like a dick?
DeleteSomething tells me this thing won't come off. Neither he or the idiots who might take him seriously is likely to be brave enough to march on what would likely be one hell of a lot of police and National Guard with armored personnel carriers and water canons and helicopters and God knows what. If you're holding a loaded gun while facing a phalanx of automatic weapons and armor and you fail to drop said weapon and lie face down on the ground fast enough. . . well, we've all seen enough of those 'Cops' videos. Suicide by well regulated militia, just as the constitution provides for.
They're breaking the law just by appearing in public with an unloaded gun and no matter which way they're headed -- so the presumption of criminal intent is there I should think and if anyone gets killed in the crossfire, they're all accessories to premeditated murder. They may just get arrested when they get out of their vehicles, one by one.
I give 1000 to one it's not gonna happen, but they're still going to scream Tyranny!
"Suicide by well regulated militia"...nice turn of phrase there, Captain
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with a peaceable assembly... With pea shooters? ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat's the maximum rate of fire on your pea shooter? What's the muzzle velocity? Maximum effective range on a point target?
DeleteWhat these Second Amendtards don't want to admit is that openly carrying a gun in public is, in and of itself, a threat. In exactly the same way that carrying a 16-inch knife, unsheathed in your hand, would be. But they demand the first, and look askance at the people doing the second. Why is that?
And what about hand grenades? They were in use during the period when the U.S. Constitution was written. Why can't we carry those around in public (or legally own one, in most cases)? Same goes for bayonets, sabers, cutlasses, daggers, hatchets and the like. Walk into a J.C. Penney's store with one of these bad boys:
Deletehttp://us.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=vmn&type=zg-search.startnow.com-1_0-zg-rp-rp&p=Revolutionary+war+swords
and you'd start a serious panic.
Muzzle velocity equals the maximum potential of force generation of a single explosively forced exhalation. Maximum rate of fire, the coordination and speed curve of individual in reloading a pea to the oral cavity. IE:Chamber. Maximum effective range individualized and therefore variable based on pea weight, projectile trajectory, and force generated by exhalation. :-)
DeleteNC:
ReplyDeleteWhy? because it feels good. Gene Autry and Hoppalong Cassady and the rest of the "real Americans" all did and they all got the girls. It's probably similar in effect to the penis extensions some tribes in Papua New Guinea wear: hey, look at me! It's a prosthetic.
I know, that's a cheap shot, but wanting to walk around town on an ordinary afternoon like you were walking point in some Vietnam jungle is kinda weird. Now if you are on Kodiac Island when the bears are hungry, that's another matter, but of course the only bears in DC wear suits.
These guys, I think, walk around in fantasyland longing for an excuse, be it insurrection or apocalypse, to be heroes. How sad is that? Like the T(wit) party they'd like to identify with historical heroes and patriots forgetting that without a Washington or even a Bobby Lee, they'd just be hoodlums and terrorists.
Demo:
ReplyDeleteI'm fully on board and I think that most people are, with the idea that there have to be restrictions on destructive weapons (which there are) and that the list needs frequent reconsideration. Maybe what you can carry should have something to do with where you carry it and in fact it does everywhere I know of.
I know New Yorkers who get nervous if you have a Swiss Army Knife, and the TSA will take away your nail clipper but I agree with Nameless. Openly carrying or displaying a deadly weapon in public, in a settled or metropolitan area is seen as a threat, veiled or overt and rightly so. Open Carry in DC is illegal for a damned good reason and I agree with it. The cops could hardly be blamed for firing on an armed mob. Kokesh knows that. Kokesh would love that so that he could pretend to be a revolutionary Minuteman at Lexington instead of a coward and traitor.
Have a 22 rifle in your pirougue, hunting 'gators outside Bayou Sorrel? Different story, legally and morally.
I still stand by my prediction that this is all hot air, bluff and bravado and nobody is that stupid and few are that suicidal. If they do get shot, it's their own damned fault and Kokesh should go to jail for inciting a riot.
"Have a 22 rifle in your pirougue, hunting 'gators outside Bayou Sorrel?"
ReplyDeleteThem better be little gators or you'd better be an exceptional marksman. {;>O
As for Kodiak island. The bears belong there and it's one of the last places that large predators live in any sort of numbers in the U.S. (the Gray Wolf is gonna be delisted, wait for the news that their numbers have plummeted, it won't be long in coming). I have nothing against sportsfishing. I just feel like people should row out there in an umiak or kayak and use drift nets or weirs and, maybe,offer a prayer and a portion of the catch to our ursine brothers.
Believe it or not, that's the preferred caliber for almost all of them. The "kill spot" is the size of a quarter at the back of the head. I know this because I've watched every episode of "Swamp People" since the beginning. Lots of large predators down here in Florida too although they were almost extinct years ago. Occasionally one wanders into town and they love golf courses. Hit a bell into the water and leave it there!
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm referencing Ripley, there are a lot of kayak fishermen here. It's kind of a center for it because of the St Lucie estuary, but we loose one or two every year because the fish fight back -- or at least the sharks do.
It isn't the sport fishermen overfishing our oceans though, it's our friends from Japan who scrape the bottom clean by the square mile, leaving it a desert barren of all life all over the world. They kill whales too, and denude forests to make disposable chopsticks. It's enough to make me join Greenpeace.
For what it's worth I buy from local fishermen. My boat isn't really equipped - white carpeting and upholstery and all that and spending 200 bucks on gas for a few hours' fishing makes that dolphin pretty expensive.
I knew a gent from the Miami area that used to go airboating on his days off (he's passed a year or so ago) and he shot a good sized one with his 9mm and said he killed it with one shot to the body, somewhere behind the front shoulder. I always thought that was a bit of a stretch. I don't know about you, Capt., but if I'm close enough to hit a quarter sized spot on a gator, one of us is WAY out of his neighborhood!
ReplyDeleteWho knows, maybe he did, but they're almost armor plated. hunters hook them and shoot them at almost point blank range.
ReplyDelete