General Thomas Gage

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The Washington Times reports:

An Internet talk show host was arrested at his home in Herndon on Tuesday night after a videotaped July Fourth stunt in which he loaded a shotgun in the District’s Freedom Plaza — a violation of the city’s gun laws.

Information about the arrest of Adam Kokesh was posted on his blog late Tuesday night.

Online court records in Virginia indicate he was charged with one felony count of possession of a schedule I or II drug, reportedly hallucinogenic mushrooms, and one felony count of possession of a schedule I or II drug while possessing a firearm.

A Fairfax County sheriff’s office spokesman said he was being held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and that he had refused to be fingerprinted and photographed. He was being held without bond, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Oct. 2.

Mr. Kokesh’s blog said that Tuesday night police raided his home, forcing their way through the front door with a battering ram and detonating a flash grenade in his foyer.

The blog said a light-armored vehicle and two low-flying helicopters barricaded the street and that police used dogs in a search that lasted for five hours and involved more than 20 SWAT team members. It said Mr. Kokesh was handcuffed and detained for questioning inside the home, in the 1500 block of Snowflake Court, before being arrested.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Park Police, which conducted the operation, could not confirm or deny Mr. Kokesh’s account.

Read the rest here.

And here is what Mike Vanderboegh, over at Sipsey Street Irregulars has to say about it:

My differences with Kokesh are both deep and public, but the FEDGOV is treading upon very dangerous ground here, by giving a guy who already clearly has a John Brown complex a chance to spark the civil war. Flash bangs? Battering rams? Armored vehicles? Held without bond? For a VIDEO? Really?

As much as I distrust Kokesh’s ego, judgment and his motives, he still is covered under the policy of No More Free Wacos. As Bob Wright has said for many years, when this thing breaks, it will likely come from an unexpected quarter, in reaction to some stupid move by the regime against someone unsympathetic and even unsavory. But we will have no choice other than 4GW against the warmakers who sent the deadly raid party at that point. Which may have been the purpose of this exercise. Maybe it is what they want now. Or perhaps they’re just as blundering and arrogant as General Gage. It won’t make a damn bit of difference when it happens — to us or to them.

For now, I couldn’t find a defense fund for Kokesh, so if some reader will provide that, I’ll post it here. – Mike Vanderboegh.

NOTE FROM STEWART RHODES

I echo Mike Vanderboegh’s thoughts on this.  Just for the record, I think Kokesh is an immature ego-maniac, who has a terrible lack of understanding of strategy (and is deaf, dumb, and blind to any attempts from others to give him any advice on strategy  – his ego just won’t let him listen).   His previously planned “armed march on DC” – which involved marching armed people onto a long concrete bridge, with no cover (truly an “elongated kill zone”), toward entrenched armed government forces -  was a strategic disaster in the making on many levels and it’s a damn good thing he finally caught a clue and called it off (see below for more  on that).

But this raid was still over the top.  Mike is spot on.  The U.S. government is playing with fire.   This is yet another example of police using unnecessary military assault tactics on a suspect to merely serve a warrant, that vastly increase the chances of someone being killed or severely injured.  There was no hostage.   This was not a case of a barricaded suspect who refused to come out.  This was just an arrest.  One mistake, one perceived false move by anyone who happens to be in the home, and they are shot.   And bursting into an armed man’s home in the middle of the night is also a great way to get shot.  Just doesn’t make any sense.  They could have arrested him while he went out for a morning Starbucks, or went out for lunch or dinner.  And it would have taken just a couple of detectives to conduct such an arrest on the streets.  No need for a 20 man SWAT team to enter his home, in the middle of the night, where the risks to all are greatly increased.   No need for an armored vehicle and helicopters.    No, this makes no sense if their only concern was making a safe arrest.  This was a show of force.  An example.  A lesson.

The more illegitimate and absurd the arbitrary rule of Leviathan, the more it violates our natural rights, the more it has to make examples out of anyone who dares to openly defy it by means of civil disobedience or nullification.   You can, and should, expect more of this, and more severe examples.  When a government steps outside of its limited delegation of powers that were intended to secure liberty and “becomes abusive of these ends,” it will of course lose the respect, consent, and willing cooperation of increasing numbers of the people.    There is now a large, and growing portion of the American people who correctly see this current regime to be every bit as illegitimate and unjust as the one our forefathers took up arms against in 1775.    Such a government, which violates the rights of the people and thus no longer has the loyalty, respect, and consent of the people, can rule only through force and the instilling of fear – just like the British Crown and Parliament.

And this current regime is making the same mistakes the Crown made.  Rather than recognizing any of the grievances of the people as legitimate, and backing off from its violations of our rights, it is doubling down on them, and asserting even more power, and using enforcement methods that increasingly make it obvious that it sees we the people as its current and future military enemy, as it treats us “As If An Enemy’s Country” – like an occupied, conquered enemy nation.  How else do you explain the detention of  U.S. citizens Jose Padilla and Yasir Hamdi as “enemy combatants”, the NDAA military detention and trial provisions, warrantless domestic NSA spying, drone strikes on Americans, and the gross violations of the Fourth Amendment we saw in Boston after the bombing in April, or the calls to treat the bombing suspect as an “unlawful combatant” under the laws of war?  They are all claims of power to use the international laws of war on us.  And that claimed power will not, and already has not, been limited to use against Muslims.  It is meant for all of us, which is exactly why the NSA has been mining metadata on all of us.   All of us are considered part of the conquered enemy population – just like in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Not just some of us.  All of us.  All are suspect.  All (except the most vetted and trusted minions) are potential “terrorists” or “insurgents” and all will be monitored, tracked, and metadata profiled.  There will be a “file” on us all because they know that what they are doing is contrary to the rights of us all, and any of us, or all of us, may join the  resistance to their plans, at any time.  They correctly assess us all as potential military adversaries precisely because they intend to violate the rights of all of us.   And you can bet they are prioritizing who is the greater threat, with veterans, retired police, and gun owners considered a threat because of their training and competency at arms alone.  And of course they also place all constitutionalists of any stripe – Ron Paul supporters, Chuck Baldwin supporters, libertarians, Constitution Party members, John Birch type conservatives, traditional Barry Goldwater conservatives, etc., – right up there at the top of the lists of “threats” because all such people adhere closely to the principles of the Founders’ Republic – to classical liberal ideas and ideals on immutable natural law and inalienable rights that must be defended at all hazard.   And to chill, suppress, and prepare to stop such people from resisting, those who control the federal government and their fellow travelers at the state level are resorting to precisely the same totalitarian methods and tools used by oppressive regimes throughout history, from King George to Stalin.

The Federal Government is treating the “long train of abuses” enumerated in our Declaration of Independence like a shopping list, and is treating George Orwell’s 1984 like an operations manual.

But just as the decrees and actions of King George, Parliament, and General Gage only pissed off more Americans, and drove more of them into the patriot camp, each abuse, outrage, usurpation, and violation by the current regime just wakes more Americans up and drives more of them into the camp of the modern patriot/liberty movement.    And once those Americans  are woken up – once they have taken the red pill – from that moment on the government propaganda and manipulation through fear of terrorism/crime/economic instability no longer works on them.  All that “works” on awake, aware people is force – but in the end, that really will not work either, just as naked force did not work on the American colonists.

But this government, like the British Crown, is so full of hubris, and so convinced that Americans are too soft to fight back and won’t dare to fire on “the King’s men,” that it will not back off.  The current political, legal, financial, and media “elite” who dominate our government will continue to push their hand down that badger hole, farther and farther, till they get the teeth.   The officers and men who marched on Lexington and Concord were not at all ready for what they got when the people had finally, after many years of abuse, decided they had had enough.   It was like the breaking of a dam.  We are on the same path, and it will arrive at the same place, with the same result.

What we are doing now is shaping the future battle space.   “They” (the oath-breaking would-be tyrants in control of our government) -are shaping the future battle space by putting into place all of the legal, structural, and logistical tools they need to suppress, control, and defeat us.  We patriots are also shaping the future battle space  by getting physically, mentally, and spiritually ready, while waking more Americans up, and while increasingly focusing our organizing and resistance at the local and state level.

Within Oath Keepers, we focus on getting as many of the current serving military, police (especially Sheriffs), and first responders to wake up and choose the patriot side – the side of the Founders Republic.  We also strive to wake up the veterans -not because they are better than other Americans, but because they took that oath (which does matter greatly once you reactivate them under their oath-bound duties), and the veterans have training and experience that can greatly help the cause of liberty (and if it comes to a fight, those who are combat veterans or well trained in combat arms skills can help win that fight while the others provide crucial logistical support).  We hope to get enough current serving and veterans to wake up so that we won’t have to fight to preserve our liberty, but even if we fail in that ideal goal, and we are compelled to fight, we will still have more of them on our side when it kicks off, because of our efforts (such as our billboard campaign to put  billboards outside of major military bases).

And, following the Founders example, we believe that the best strategy is to use nullification, civil disobedience, and open defiance in our local communities, towns, counties, and states, while we get organized and prepared as best we can for whatever may come.  Make the bad guys within the government come to us, as the clear aggressors, just like the Founders did.  Make them come into our communities, our towns, our counties, our states, and by using open defiance and nullification as communities – as towns, counties, and states – we will force them to either admit they are impotent, or force them to take off the mask, take off the gloves, and use overwhelming force against us, which will only push more Americans to our side.  Learn from the wisdom of the Founders, and follow their hard-learned lessons on successful resistance to tyranny by uniting at the local level, and resisting and nullifying together, at the local level.

Stewart Rhodes

Founder of Oath Keepers