Gary Kingsbury: Jackbooted Thug of the Month
"Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage." --Winston Churchilland:
The judges [who want 'under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance] simply do not understand the First Amendment. It does not bar religious expression in public settings or anywhere else. In fact, it expressly PROHIBITS federal interference in the free expression of religion. Far from mandating strict secularism in schools, it instead bars the federal government from prohibiting the Pledge of Allegiance, school prayer, or any other religious expression. The politicians and judges pushing the removal of religion from public life are violating the First Amendment, not upholding it." --Rep. Ron Pauland:
"Sifting through the blather, the political paradigm has devolved into saying what you must to get elected, passing legislation that may or may not be good for the country, and staying in office. Analyzing this sorry spectacle every four years, it appears that too many Americans are willing to put their faith in a power-seeking, mandarin class of second- and third-rate professional careerist politicians whose primary allegiance, I'm afraid, is to themselves. What is needed are persons of impeccable, statesman-like character and reasoned judgment -- people, for the most part, who would be instinctively repelled by the political process." --Barrett Kalellis
Patrick K Martin at The Libertarian Enterprise - Come the Revolution? What Revolution? - why hasn't there been a revolution yet? We possess the means, arms, but do not have the will to resist. [tle]
Well, why do you do it? Come on you Anarchists, why haven't you put up a sign on your property and publicly declared that no person, government or agent there of has any authority there and that you will shoot dead any unauthorized person who enters? Why have you not walked into your local town hall or city council meeting and declared your personal sovereignty and encouraged your neighbors to do the same? Have you written the IRS and the SSA to tell them that you no longer recognize their authority and that you will resist, with lethal force, any attempt to impose their illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of your rights and property? No? Why not? Do you not have the strength of your convictions?
The answer is obvious. You (like most of the rest of us) have no wish to die! You value your life more than your freedom.
...
The truth is that the only weapon governments possess is the only one the human race almost universally responds to, fear. Governments almost never have the capacity to prevail by main force. If a robber goes into a bank with twenty people in it, with a six-shot revolver, logic says that he can be overwhelmed, but each of those people fear that they may be one of the six who get shot. Government too is out numbered, the force it possesses is miniscule compared to the number of people it controls, but nobody wants to risk being one of the people killed, no matter how few may end up that way.
John Lopez at The Libertarian Enterprise - The Moral Outrage of Voting - How dare you vote! tle
The more people that participate in murder and theft, the thinner the blame is spread. One man who kills is branded a murderer, but one million who kill in unison are hailed as citizens. A single thief can be stopped with locks, but what of ten thousand thieves, with the power of your own sanction behind them? How does participating in organized theft prevent you from being robbed? After claiming power over the property of others, how can you complain when they exercise the same power over you?
Carl Bussjaeger at The Libertarian Enterprise - Jackbooted Thug of the Month, August 2002: Officer Gary Kingsbury - Gary Kingsbury, the South Dakota cop who arrested and assaulted Nathan Barton for speaking at the South Dakota State Fair. Includes the email address of Mr. Kingsbury's boss. I wrote the following email:
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 14:20:19 -0400
To: dfeltman.cityofmitchell@midconetwork.com (Public Safety Chief Doug Feltman)
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Gary Kingsbury's arrest of Nathan Barton
Cc: bill@billstclair.com
Mr. Feltman,
It has come to my attention that one of your employees, Officer Gary Kingsbury, very probably illegally arrested and assaulted a South Dakota citizen, Nathan Barton, at the South Dakota State Fair (http://www.sierratimes.com/02/08/04/arlp080402.htm , http://www.sierratimes.com/02/08/08/ar-hunter.htm , http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe186-20020812-06.html). It seems to me like business as usual in Police State America, but you can do a lot towards dispelling that notion. Cops are not supposed to be above the law. You could help matters considerably by assembling a grand jury to consider indicting Mr. Kingsbury for felony assault and battery.
Sincerely,
Bill St. Clair
bill@billstclair.com
Jim Duensing at The Libertarian Enterprise - Why Does George W. Bush Hate Saddam Hussein? - because Saddam refuses to toe the line of the Daddy Bush'es New World Order. [tle]
Doug Newman at The Libertarian Enterprise - James Dobson: Flaming Liberal? - Mr. Newman likes Mr. Dobson, when except when Mr. Dobson acts like a liberal by trying to impose his ideas on everybody else at the point of a government gun. [tle]
Ian Ball at The Telegraph - Anger over airport security scans - The British learn about the "virtual strip search" machines in the Orlando airport, and are not happy. [trt-ny]
Footage obtained by MSNBC show the front and rear views of a man who had passed through the scanner.
He was naked except for a thin belt at his waist, with his genitalia and buttocks clearly defined. No images of women passing through the scanner have been released by the airport or the device's manufacturer.
