Nobodies' opinion (here) was ridiculed. The actions of Kokesh and the defense of those actions, however, was called into question. I hope people here have thick enough skin to not allow damage to their fragile 'egos'. I know jamie does -- and my words weren't directed towards him.

Please, before we start this 'a1pha is an asshole' crap can we try to stay on topic instead of derailing? I am allowed my opinion just as much as jamie is allowed his. Both are valid as we both come from different ends of the spectrum.

If you would rather read/discuss interesting topics then do so... don't egg on the ego games.

the way in which you are thinking I said something is far different than how I said it.
Perhaps it is different where you live, but here, it is pretty common that if 20+ cops show up, with cars and helicopters, etc etc they *will* find something, be it there or not.

as I said IF (and a big if) the report is as it was stated in the first post, the police appeared to be trying to provoke a reaction. Knocking in a door, throwing a flash grenade, and bringing a swap team has nothing to do with finding an 1/8 of psilocybes.... They were hoping to get shot at. this did not happen, so they made sure to find something so he could be put away. If you feel this is totally crazy, well, I wish I had your view on life... from what I've seen, your point of view would be a denial of reality.

Either way. I'm saddened that there are people that never grew up, and still feel the need to rebel against authority. I'm equally as saddened that we funded a very expensive raid against a person I would consider mentally handicapped, and we will continue to fund his incarceration and probably very expensive court drama.

ohhh, and I almost forgot.
Alpha is an asshole.

<3 you too.

Its near impossible to understand what exactly he's planning/was planning to do.

IMHO, he's either a fake, too afraid to actually take up arms against the fed, or stupid enough to go full blown armed revolt against the government, or another factor i cant predict. Thats my opinion, you may call it a character smear if you choose to see it as that.

What i know for a fact, thats NOT a character smear or opinion, is that he, like all most every politician, cannot be expected to live up to his word.

IE, the fake cannabis incident at the whitehouse, his rhetoric beforehand about forcefully violent resistance to the government, the "which side of the firing like will you be on" comment he made in the linked video, etc, etc.

Either way, if there is a citizens takeover of the federal government, it will not be armed. The people pushing to force our criminal leaders to step down, will not be armed.

An armed situation, would be a small guerrilla army of violent, unorganized, and dangerous individuals that would for one be crushed, and two, probably in all likely hood lead to declaration of martial law and suspension of the constitution per rex-84 NSPD 51 etc, etc.

Hell, that may lead to mass civil disobedience, but i don't like the idea of blood being shed, or the constitution being suspended to spark what HAS to be a non-violent (at least on the civilian side) transition of governance.

Armed citizens, fighting the US government, only means they cannot get the full backing of the public, which yields a far more influencing force upon the fed. The power to shut this entire country down, if solidarity was achieved en mass. You get the country to strike, you have them by the balls.

And nobody gets killed that way.

The politicians, bureaucrats, public servants, that broke the law, get a trial, instead of summary execution by a decentralized militia, or death from following orders of their superiors.

I cannot see how anybody can support someone so vocally violence motivated in their intentions about bringing about a change to the fucked up system we have. You're just resorting to the same barbaric tactics the government uses to oppress the citizens, and in my eyes, are no better than them.

adam kokesh had it coming for long time

I wonder if he actually believes he and his gun-toting libertarian supporters could actually beat the US government, if it came to armed revolution.

If he doesn't, what's his game? If he does, then he is quite obviously living in a fantasy world.

Blessings
~ND

I have to amend my earlier position a bit. That last video clip is disturbing. He's looking decidedly imbalanced, like he's on his way to becoming Timothy McVeigh or something. I could see his shtick turning horribly tragic if left to run its course.

Seconded.

We can probably generalize that by and large, the most sane and balanced among our community are also the least interested in getting in front of a camera and talking about these substances. As a result, those that do end up in the media spotlight are, to say the least, a motley bunch of characters and not a good cross section of our community at all. But that's what the media feeds the public. Not because they are intentionally trying to demonize- I honestly just think that they want to sell as space, and "gun toting libertarian raided for hallucinogenic drugs" or "man on shrooms rips off own balls" are pretty sensational headlines. The sane and balanced among us can't compete with that.

Off-topic tangent...

The violence/non-violence dichotomy is false, problematic, and played out, imo.

Existence is violent. period.

People who talk about non-violence often have drastically different ideas of what qualifies as "non-violent." For some people, property damage is "violence," for others it is "non-violent" to tackle or physically confront individuals engaged in property destruction, for others the initial Egyptian uprising was "non-violent" (even though police stations were burned to the ground and people were in the street fighting the cops). I have never encountered a situation where consensus could be reached as to what actions qualify as "violent".

Every single one of us is engaged in some degree of violence, just by living our lives. The question then, is not "Is this violent," but rather, "What is the goal of this violence?"

For furthering reading I would suggest, The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy:

During the 2001 FTAA summit in Quebec City, one newspaper famously reported that violence erupted when protesters began throwing tear gas canisters back at the lines of riot police. When the authorities are perceived to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, “violence” is often used to denote illegitimate use of force—anything that interrupts or escapes their control. This makes the term something of a floating signifier, since it is also understood to mean “harm or threat that violates consent.”

This is further complicated by the ways our society is based on and permeated by harm or threat that violates consent. In this sense, isn’t it violent to live on colonized territory, destroying ecosystems through our daily consumption and benefitting from economic relations that are forced on others at gunpoint? Isn’t it violent for armed guards to keep food and land, once a commons shared by all, from those who need them? Is it more violent to resist the police who evict people from their homes, or to stand aside while people are made homeless? Is it more violent to throw tear gas canisters back at police, or to denounce those who throw them back as “violent,” giving police a free hand to do worse?

In this state of affairs, there is no such thing as nonviolence—the closest we can hope to come is to negate the harm or threat posed by the proponents of top-down violence. And when so many people are invested in the privileges this violence affords them, it’s naïve to think that we could defend ourselves and others among the dispossessed without violating the wishes of at least a few bankers and landlords. So instead of asking whether an action is violent, we might do better to ask simply: does it counteract power disparities, or reinforce them?

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this whole violent/non violent thing comes up often when gun rights are being discussed..often it seems as if many people just outright assume that because people want the right to own guns that they are suddenly planning on overthrowing the government etc..when many people just wish to have a gun to protect they're own family from other violent criminals while the police are out there more concerned with pot smokers etc.

..and yeah we do live in a violent world, and the public are often the victims of this top down authoritarian system. The idea that some people have that all of these things have some kind of non volent solution is a pretty naïve and sheltered one. That does not suddenly mean I like violence..I am just trying to be realistic about the current situation.

What the hell is "peaceful" protests in sanctioned areas going to accomplish? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of a protest? A protest in the context we are concerned with is a act of civil disobedience, in the face of an unjust system..when people start going on about peaceful protests I begin to think that these people have never even been to a real protest or witnessed police brutality first hand. The ideals of peace dissolve really fast when you are standing there watching the police just beat the fucking shit out of people.

I agree that in a lot of cases it is very difficult not to protest without violence.
What are your thoughts on Ghandi and Martin Luther King? Are they flukes? Or just impossible role models for the average human being to aspire to?
Below is a list of six points of Martin luther King jrs thoughts on non violent protest. Do they make sense to you or are they naive claptrap?


Martin Luther King Jr.’s 6 Facts About Non-Violent Resistance


1. Non-violent resistance is not for cowards. It is not a quiet, passive acceptance of evil. One is passive and non-violent physically, but very active spiritually, always seeking ways to persuade the opponent of advantages to the way of love, cooperation, and peace.

2. The goal is not to defeat or humiliate the opponent but rather to win him or her over to understanding new ways to create cooperation and community.

3. The non-violent resister attacks the forces of evil, not the people who are engaged in injustice. As King said in Montgomery, “We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.”

4. The non-violent resister accepts suffering without retaliating; accepts violence, but never commits it. Gandhi said, “Rivers of blood may have to flow before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood.” Gandhi and King both understood that suffering by activists had the mysterious power of converting opponents who would otherwise refuse to listen.

5. In non-violent resistance, one learns to avoid physical violence toward others and also learns to love the opponents with “agape” or unconditional love–which is love given not for what one will receive in return, but for the sake of love alone. It is God flowing through the human heart. Agape is ahimsa. “Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate,” said King.

6. Non-violent resistance is based on the belief that the universe is just. There is God or a creative force that is moving us toward universal love and wholeness continually. Therefore, all our work for justice will bear fruit – the fruit of love, peace, and justice for all beings everywhere.”

See my post above.

"Non-violent resistance" not only stems from a privileged position, but it also assumes that your adversary has a conscience.

Maybe it's not about convincing the adversary by reaching his conscience, but rather about gathering more sympathizers who might have not join the cause yet but who's conscience are reached by one's 'non-violent' actions.

I know for a fact that what gave a lot of public legitimacy to some of the protests I have been involved in were exactly the fact they were non-violent (taking the usual sense of the word). This meant that people from all sorts of political orientations started supporting it because they saw the constructive aspect of it and were not put off by so-called "vandalism".

That being said, I very much agree with you snozz that there is a deeper discussion that runs through the whole 'violence' argument, related to what is legitimate violence and what isnt. Or even, what is violence and what isnt.

This interests me greatly. Thank you for your links above, Snozz.

And what is just violence? That is, when is it justified to use violence and to what degree? Reminds me of jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles.

That doesn"t really tell me what your thoughts are on the 6 points i listed. Unless it was a polite way of telling me you come out on the side of naive claptrap. If so , do you see the possibilty of us moving away from our current paradigm?



I agree. Non violent protest can actively propogate ideas into the populace in order to promote change.

This is a very complicated issue and i still don"t know which side of the violence fence i stand. I think i still lean to the airy fairy priveliged non violent protest side, but i am a consummate low achiever by modern society"s standards and i don"t get angry very much.

I would describe violence as using an act of force against someones will, no matter what side you are on.

As for the appropriateness of violence i am not intellectually equipped to offer any valuable insights into that subject. But i would guess that it is a purely subjective concept. Like if someone slept with my girlfriend behind my back and i gave them a slap. I would think that i used legitimate violence. Whereas the girlfriend stealing, vulture, fascist, pigdog who stole her from me may see it a different way. Maybe my ex (may she rot in hell) had told him that i was being inattentive to her needs. He felt justified in his crime and so could not conceptualise the validity of the broken nose that i gave him.

That girl was no damned good for you, Hug.

Personally, I never liked her that much. You're much better off without her.

P.S. - I apologize for sleeping with her. She told me you'd been inattentive to her needs.

Martin Luther King was shot in the face on his balcony either just after or before making a big speech.

I don't want to downplay what King or Gandi achieved, but the world is the way it is now despite their non violent actions.

Violent resistance to unjust violence and oppression is just violence IMO.

People will always disagree with this stance, depending on what their views are. I don't believe in this harm none worldview, when there are people causing tons of harm to other people. At some point people must realize that they are the weavers of their own future..maybe at some point they just happened to end up in that position but many of these people have chosen to play those cards out. I don't feel bad for what happens to violent oppressors when they're victims attack. I applaud those who are willing to value life enough to fight for it.

The bloke she ran off with was a complete pratt aswell Art

p.s - if you have"nt already, i recommend that you visit the clinic.....sooner rather than later



No. The world is the way it is because of their non violent actions, not in spite of them. Both of them were shot. They valued their principles enough to die for them. I also think it is a better place in respect to the things they were fighting for. Adam Kokesh ain"t no Ghandi.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."