A Gun Nut's Notion of "Subtlety"

[paft.livejournal.com]

Adam Kokesh: 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.

So Adam Kokesh has a GREAT idea! A thousand men marching on Washington DC on July 4th, carrying loaded weapons.

Kokesh says that his intent is "to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated [and] cower in submission to tyranny," which is pretty rich coming from someone whose response to legislation he dislikes is to wave a loaded gun at the legislators. It's especially interesting, if not especially reassuring, to read his comments about the marchers' commitment to non-violence.

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.

All of which, of course, depends on every single marcher's interpretation of being approached "respectfully." This frankly sounds more like a barely veiled... excuse me... "SUBTLE" threat that Kokesh thinks they should start shooting if things don't go the way they want it to.

He elaborated further on that same Facebook page:

(Emphasis Added) Now that it's undeniable that this is going to happen, allow me to make clear how. There will be coordination with DC law enforcement prior to the event. I will recommend that they do the best they can to honor their oaths and escort us on our route. Failing to provide that commitment to safety, we will either be informed that we will only be allowed up to a certain point where we would be arrested. If this is the case, we will approach that point as a group and if necessary, I will procede to volunteer myself to determine what their actual course of action with someone crossing the line will be at which point fellow marchers will have the choice of joining me one at a time in a peaceful, orderly manner, or turning back to the National Cemetery.

Okay, Everybody clear on this?

I am a woman who wrote graduate papers on Henry James. I attend a Bloomsday celebration of Joyce's Ulysses on a regular basis, and listen with pleasure and comprehension to the readings. I've read every word of Mrs. Dalloway, The Sound and the Fury and The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy. Mandarin writing holds no terrors for me. But I have to confess Adam Kokesh's "subtlety" here defeats me. As near as I can figure out, he's saying that, as the leader of a thousand individuals marching with loaded weapons into our capital, he will generously instruct the DC police on how to deal with someone "crossing the line," backed up by lots of armed marchers crowding around and helping him in this negotiation.

As Crooks and Liars Crooks and Liars puts it -- What could possibly go wrong?

Especially given what he Tweeted last week:

When the government comes to take your guns, you can shoot government agents, or submit to slavery.

Comments

[paft.livejournal.com]

The kind of society you envision would not be free. I would no longer even have the freedom to just walk through a public place. I'd have to go in packing heat. People who couldn't afford firearms, or who lacked the ability to physically defend themselves would be easy pickings.

But maybe you like that idea.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

That is just silly. If that were true, then that would be true now.

And it's not.

There are not possible enough police officers to patrol every place and yet general people have an accord whereby many public spaces are relatively safe.

Are you such a danger to people that everyone around you needs to carry heat against you all the time? I doubt you would say that. And most other people would not either.

Removing an unjustified monopoly on force does not suddenly turn everyone into marauding cannibal mass shooters. It doesn't work like that.

Actual communities where people actually know each other and care about each other tend to protect their members who lack the ability to physically defend themselves. It's human-tribal nature to care for one's own. It's only in the increasingly atomized, artificial mass society we have today that such sentiments are abandoned.

[paft.livejournal.com]

v: That is just silly. If that were true, then that would be true now. There are not possible enough police officers to patrol every place and yet general people have an accord whereby many public spaces are relatively safe.

And yet criminals know that a police car is only a phone call away in those places.

Areas where that's not true tend, yes, to be rather unsafe for pedestrians.

v: Are you such a danger to people that everyone around you needs to carry heat against you all the time?

No, but I could very well be perceived as a target in a place where I had no recourse to the police.

v: Actual communities where people actually know each other and care about each other tend to protect their members who lack the ability to physically defend themselves.

They also frequently gang up on and lynch unpopular minorities or individuals.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

They also frequently gang up on and lynch unpopular minorities or individuals.

As has "law enforcement" for decades if not more.

You fail to note that in those communities there is still a monopoly on force and the minorities had no communities to draw from nor weapons to defend themselves with.

The police do not prevent such crimes, they respond to them after the fact. If you feel in danger then you are still taking your life into your hands whether or not you feel protected by the police. And if its a member of the police assaulting you for whatever reason, you have even less recourse to any kind of redress, if you are even taken seriously for reporting it.

Obviously we shouldn't join communities where the majority are racist bigots, however. They don't deserve out population.

The point you still fail to grasp is that is what the state is--a "community" with a monopoly force "lynching" its opponents domestically and abroad. They gang upon them.

So your argument is really one against the state if I am reading it correctly. Because a power structure like that is incompatible with my "anarchic vision".

[paft.livejournal.com]

v: As has "law enforcement" for decades if not more.

That was true for years in the south when it came to local law enforcement. Things got better AFTER the feds stepped in.

What you advocate is a patchwork of localized fiefdoms led by strongmen that would make the enforcement of the "law" akin to the American south during the lynching epidemic.

v: Obviously we shouldn't join communities where the majority are racist bigots, however. They don't deserve out population.

So you figure all those stupid black people victimized in the south just should have moved.

Why would a local strongman not just have his thugs prevent the workforce from fleeing?

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Things got better AFTER the feds stepped in.

Ugh, there are so many obvious disagreements to this, its hard to think of which ones to list. Not specifically related to racist law enforcement, which still continues (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/nyregion/fatal-shooting-of-ex-marine-by-white-plains-police-raises-questions.html?_r=3&) as I'm sure you know, but to the fact that countless times "feds" have overstepped their boundaries and abused and bullied (and murdered) their way through people. Waco disagrees with you. Ruby Ridge disagrees with you. Hell, Ninja Kid (http://onlineathens.com/stories/041306/uganews_20060413050.shtml) disagrees with you. This guy (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/man-celebrating-drug-holiday-locked-in-cell-for-5-days-by-dea.html) too.

What you advocate is a patchwork of localized fiefdoms led by strongmen that would make the enforcement of the "law" akin to the American south during the lynching epidemic.

Don't tell me what I advocate and then get it completely fucking wrong just to make it easy for you to argue against.

So you figure all those stupid black people victimized in the south just should have moved.

This is such a stupid and obvious question, it makes me want to end the conversation right now if you're not going to be serious.

Many of those people tried to move away, remember? This little thing called the "Run Away Slave Laws" kind of spoiled it. And yet even then concerned people were able to set up the DIY Underground Railroad to try and help. That was long before the feds were willing to do anything.

To summarize, what you fail to understand is that, by definition, the scenario you are describing is completely incompatible with my social ideals or community vision. It is incompatible with the definitions of the words themselves. If someone or a group has the kind of power to prevent people from moving around, create "separate local fiefdoms controlled by local strongmen" (showing ignorance of how and why exactly the feudal system operated as opposed to the far more egalitarian native situations in some other, very long-lived, tribal locales), then that is not what I am describing, as what I am describing is without such unequal concentrations of power.

You get away from the central issue once again, which is that, IF you believe in personal freedom so far as it regards things which do not threaten yours or mine or anyone elses' freedom, you cannot then advocate using violence to force people to do things they would not normally of their own free will do. Yet that is exactly what happens with legislation or law, everytime it is changed in the favor of the state, its agents and business. If people resist what they feel to be an unjustified law, they can be arrested and imprisoned or, if they resist an unjustified imprisonment, executed on the spot. Don't ignore the gun in the room.

Would *you* personally do it to someone? Of course not. But through supporting the system in so many ways, people do it all the time.

[paft.livejournal.com]

v: Ugh, there are so many obvious disagreements to this, its hard to think of which ones to list. Not specifically related to racist law enforcement, which still continues as I'm sure you know, but to the fact that countless times "feds" have overstepped their boundaries and abused and bullied (and murdered) their way through people. Waco disagrees with you. Ruby Ridge disagrees with you. Hell, Ninja Kid disagrees with you. This guy too.

Yep. Like every institution, government and law enforcement have their flaws. Having neither, however, is worse.

The reality of the south is that, until the feds stepped in, black southerners could be beaten, killed, prevented from voting, even enslaved with impunity. And I'm not talking about slave days. I'm talking decades after the Emancipation Proclamation. Yes, racism remains a problem in the south, in both government and law enforcement, but any black southerner who remembers what it was like before the Feds "interfered" with that pesky Civil Rights Act is going to be pretty emphatic about the difference between then and now.

v: If someone or a group has the kind of power to prevent people from moving around, create "separate local fiefdoms controlled by local strongmen" (showing ignorance of how and why exactly the feudal system operated as opposed to the far more egalitarian native situations in some other, very long-lived, tribal locales), then that is not what I am describing, as what I am describing is without such unequal concentrations of power.

In a society with a proliferation of weapons and no law enforcement, how would such unequal concentrations of power be prevented?

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Saying "they just have their flaws" is a cop out. Its not that they just need reformed. It is that, historically they allow parasites, maniacs, tyrants and mass murderers to use that concentrated font of power to exploit anf dominate other human beings without a logical justification. The wars and mass murders of the last centiry could not have happened without the interest of such states (and businesses), yet they resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions. When you repeat the same problems over and over anf we know they will do so again, it is not merely a flaw. It is an inherent failure.

Of course I am aware that the feds were instrumental in ensuring civil rights for people of color in the U.S. south. And it is very unfortunate they of all people had to step in and do that there when everybody should have seen the fallacy of their prejudice and put a stop to tolerating it. Of course it was in large part thanks to the push of the movement exemplified by Martin Luther King, which was grass roots in nature.

To answer your question, however, I would posit that, 1) with everyone or all communities having access to whatever weapons for their defense they can manufacture and house, one rogue group would have a hard time conquerinf the whole country like that because they wouldnt get very far. 2) People ourselves would have to be vigilant and individuals in danger of being repressed would have to band together and take.action against those trying to set themselves up as tyrants. I imagine this would not be unpopular as people would not want to lose their freedom and see the past reconstructed. So, basically, the revolution is ongoing and we can always find ways to learn non-dominating ways of relating.

[paft.livejournal.com]

v: Saying "they just have their flaws" is a cop out.

No, actually, the "cop-out" is claiming that because an institution is imperfect, it should be eliminated entirely. Using your rationale, none of us should bother locking our doors at night because a truly determined criminal will just kick them in. Healthcare? A waste of time. Even people who go in for regular check-ups sometimes get sick and die. Educating children? Why bother? Some kids won't make straight A's...

v: Of course I am aware that the feds were instrumental in ensuring civil rights for people of color in the U.S. south. And it is very unfortunate they of all people had to step in and do that there when everybody should have seen the fallacy of their prejudice and put a stop to tolerating it.

And yet, they DID have to step in. We white southerners were nowhere near seeing "the fallacy of (our) prejudice" and stopping it on our own. (We didn't have a big rock-candy mountain, either, and Tinkerbell wasn't waving her magic wand and giving buckets of magically non-fattening peanut M&Ms to good little children who ate their spinach.) The south was allowing people to be beaten, even murdered, with impunity. Until the Federal Government came in and put a stop to it.

It's called reality.

v: I would posit that, 1) with everyone or all communities having access to whatever weapons for their defense they can manufacture and house, one rogue group would have a hard time conquerinf the whole country like that because they wouldnt get very far.

IOW, I was spot on in my assessment.

First of all, this notion that some sort of parity would remain in place resulting in a permanent stalemate is the stuff of fairy tales. Sooner or later, one group would get the other hand by accumulating more weapons, either through chance or skill and dominate the other groups.

And what if you're unlucky enough to find yourself within a group which decides that, as an unpopular minority, you should be a slave to other members of the group? Or you are a witch/commie/whatever else they hate and should be executed?

v: People ourselves would have to be vigilant and individuals in danger of being repressed would have to band together and take.action against those trying to set themselves up as tyrants.

And if you are not popular enough, or numerous enough to protect yourselves? The society you posit isn't free. Conformity would become a matter of life and death. Better agree with everyone in your group when it comes to politics or religion! Otherwise, they might not bother to protect you.

v: I imagine this would not be unpopular as people would not want to lose their freedom and see the past reconstructed. So, basically, the revolution is ongoing and we can always find ways to learn non-dominating ways of relating.

And I imagine myself twenty years younger, and living in the Taj Mahal with Dr. Who (The David Tennant version), lots of chocolate, and a hundred, million, trillion dollars, but that doesn't make it likely.

As things stand now for me, I can get up every morning, make myself a nice, hot, cup of coffee, and walk to work unarmed, reasonably certain that a gunfight is not going to break out, nobody is going to knock me down and take my wallet, or rape me. If they do, I can call the police and have at least some hope of the perps getting caught and punished. I can voice my beliefs about religion, politics, etc, without worrying that, in doing so, I'm setting myself and my family up to be cast out by "the group" and declared fair game.

Do explain why I should prefer your version of society.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Do explain why, if you were unlucky enough to be born in some kind of fringe racist/religious/whatever community, thinking here according to the principles of complete personal freedom insofar as it respects that of another, why you simply couldn't find a community without such stupidity and more in line with your interests and beliefs?

I agree with you that there is obvious room for abuses in the scenario I very loosely describe and solutions should surely be thought about. It's difficult to predict what would be short of very brief historical examples, as we've never truly had a free society.

However, I think it is true that there is even more room, and incentive, for abuses in the current scenario.

I am asking you to be logical and explain what gives a special minority class--i.e. the heads of state and their agents--the special right to impose their will on people like you and me and everybody else? It is unjustified and illogical.

[paft.livejournal.com]

v: Do explain why, if you were unlucky enough to be born in some kind of fringe racist/religious/whatever community, thinking here according to the principles of complete personal freedom insofar as it respects that of another, why you simply couldn't find a community without such stupidity and more in line with your interests and beliefs?

Because in an America that's been reduced to a patchwork of groups steadily evolving and consolidating into strong-man fiefdoms, neither communication nor movement is going to be free and easy. What, I'm supposed to hop on the internet, do a search of nearby groups to find one that isn't going to enslave or oppress me and then gas up my car and hit the interstate? That presumes:

A: access to both a computer and the internet, hardly guaranteed if I'm already in my groups bad books. And even if I were still able to get to a computer --
B: consistent electrical power, which isn't even likely in a country broken down into different, no doubt frequently hostile and warring communities
C: Open and honest communication from these communities about their philosophies and agenda rather than happyface propaganda.

But let's say word of mouth has reached me (somehow) about some shangri-la of a community where I would be allowed to live my life in relative peace. Now I have to get there. Again -- how? I'd have to:

A: Escape from my group which may not be willing to relinquish either the labor I can provide as a slave, or the entertainment and satisfaction derived from executing me.
B: Once I've escaped, manage to navigate a now fractured and unpredictable landscape of fractured road systems, many of which may involve tolls, damaged structures and bridges, and hostile groups.
C: Hope and pray that this Shangri La actually exists, or still exists and doesn't get taken over by another group before I somehow manage to get there.

This isn't a free society. It's a @#)! cable news sci-fi adventure series, and as appealing as that brand of "freedom" may be to people who fantasize about holding off bands of marauding reds with their Bushmasters, most of the rest of us would prefer the freedom to spend our lives doing something other boning up on our marksmanship, strategy, battlefield medicine and the barter system.

What gives some people the right to make laws? The political system and social contract which we have set up, which includes the right to vote and have some say in the legislation passed. It's imperfect, but the alternative is going to result in freedom only for the strong, the healthy, and the wealthy. Take away the laws and the law enforcers, and the result is going to be a dramatic decrease in freedom for the vast majority of Americans.