Adam Kokesh Body Slammed for Dancing at Jefferson Memorial

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


Thomas Jefferson died in debt, sure doesn't sound like he made out like a bandit to me. www.monticello.org... He wasn't alone either.

Originally posted by stephinrazin
Sadly, the militarization of the police in this country is common. They have been trained to believe they are the power of the state. It is their job to "protect" the homeland from "terrorists." Any one who refuses to show respect for their authority is challenging them in their duty. I really think they believe it is their duty to ensure fear and respect from the population. If the people to not fear the police the "terrorists" win.

How did we ever let it come to this....

It happened because they took Leave it to Beaver and other shows OFF the AIR that showed the police were public servants and WE could talk back to them.....One Adam 12, one Adam 12 come in, do you copy?

Ever see the episode of "That 70's Show" when Red and Kitty are in the car making out and the cop taps on the window? Red threatens the cop and tells the cop to basically get lost and the cop says okay sir, have a good night!! You will never see THAT in public.

Police back then KNEW their place and respected the public because they KNEW we were the boss!!

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by PieKeeper

 

This is not a school, it is not a hospital, it is a statue, a monument. Are you serious? How does dancing somehow stop others from "enjoying a national monument"?

They aren't simply dancing. They are obviously protesting.

I was wondering if they were going to apply a greg the hammer figure four leglock on somebody for good measre.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher

Originally posted by notonsamepage
reply to post by OutKast Searcher

 

Post Removed By Staff

I seem to have touched a nerve...did you not get the responses you were hoping for?


It is quite simple really...we live in a nation of laws...individuals do not have the power to determine if a law is just or not (if you think you do, go re-read the constitution and find where it says this...come back and post it)....and if you break those laws you suffer the consequences. if you want to further your consequences...go ahead and resist arrest...which is also against the law.

Do you think laws should not be enforced? Should I be able to steal from you? Should I be able to kill someone just because I don't like them?

Who are YOU to choose which laws should or should not be enforced???

edit on 5/29/2011 by semperfortis because: (no reason given)

I believe it IS Article 1 Section 1 of most Bill of Rights in every state Constitutions. WE are the POWER behind government with the right to change alter or ABOLISH as WE see fit. Do YOU not do any research or understand WHAT you are and WHO you are?

No victim NO CRIME *SNIP*

Minnesota State Constitution
ARTICLE I
BILL OF RIGHTS

Section 1. OBJECT OF GOVERNMENT. Government is instituted for the security, benefit and protection of the people, in whom all political power is inherent, together with the right to alter, modify or reform government whenever required by the public good.

Sec. 2. RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. No member of this state shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted.

ALL cops are criminals as are judges and lawyers!!!! THAT is a FACT!!


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reply to post by Cryptonomicon

Thank you Crypto for providing this.

Here is a very relevant bit from the court case:

Visitors to the Memorial interior must ascend a stairway, traverse a portico, and pass a sign that says “Quiet / Respect Please” before entering.

Source - www.cadc.uscourts.gov...$file/10-5078-1308285.pdf

There is also a provision that the interior should be for "quiet contemplation".

This was done as a Cause and Effect exercise. The cops says no dancing, then arrest's a couple for dancing, then notice how 5 or 6 other people start dancing. Very good exercise to demonstrate Cause and Effect. This same thing could apply to riot's or WTSHTF. The other reason this happened is because the police were exercising their right's to enforce laws not bound by a boarder, remember when he said "Your 50 Miles from so and so".. Anyway's I think the real reason they were trying to provoke people to dance, and to arrest them while on FILM is so when this video spreads to say, China or Russia, We can fool them as to how "bad"we have it.


This video reminds me of the rally's done by the tea party's and union work's at the brink of the revolutions oversea's.. Again, to try and show everywhere else but America "how bad we have it". When we really don't have it that bad.

Originally posted by daddio

ALL cops are criminals as are judges and lawyers!!!! THAT is a FACT!!

edit on 29-5-2011 by daddio because: (no reason given)

There are thousands of cops, judges, and lawyers without whom the USA would have been a police state nearly a century ago. *SNIP*

Society without police would be pure anarchy and you would not have a single secure night in your own home or be able to safely travel at any time of day.

You're hopelessly lost in confusion if you're unable to draw distinctions between the cops who abuse their authority and those who protect and serve. The latter greatly outnumber the former even today.


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I'm sitting watching this in disbelief

Amazing.

Originally posted by dubiousone
You're hopelessly lost in confusion if you're unable to draw distinctions between the cops who abuse their authority and those who protect and serve. The latter greatly outnumber the former even today.

I disagree with this part. "Good cops" are just as guilty as "bad cops" if they dont enforce the laws they are supposed to be enforcing on their bad colleagues. There is us vs. them and thin blue line etc. going on. "Good cops" are accomplishes and therefore just as guilty when it comes to the "rotten apples".

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reply to post by daddio

ALL cops are criminals as are judges and lawyers!!!! THAT is a FACT!!

Thomas Jefferson....was a lawyer


And people do have the power to change the government....it is called voting....not breaking laws.

Originally posted by PieKeeper

They aren't simply dancing. They are obviously protesting.

Of course they are protesting. They are protesting arrests made against 17 individuals who were silently dancing at the Jefferson memorial in celebration of his birthday. This went to court, and the court ruled against their claims of a 1st Amendment violation (speech and assembly in this case).

Adam disagreed and got people to go there and protest the ruling. An NBC affiliate was also there to film it, interviewed him beforehand and was thrown out with the rest of them - then never reported it to NBC.

The court ruled that;

...despite the fact that the monument is open to the public, it is a “nonpublic forum” because it has a “solemn commemorative purpose” incompatible with the full range of free expression.

It's not a "free speech zone", evidently, and the court said that the Constitution wasn't violated because the park security acted within their intentions to keep the place "tranquil" and that their regulations were "viewpoint neutral". The thing about this is, if it's public property - and it is, paid for by you and me - then the government cannot pick and choose where you are able to exercise a full range of free speech (even if "regulations" say the rent-a-cops can).

I agree with what Adam and the others did. They went back to stand up for what Thomas Jefferson stood for in his lifetime, at his memorial. It was a fine mixture of civil disobedience and paying homage to a great man.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher

Originally posted by Brotherman
reply to post by OutKast Searcher

 

Laws should be enforced by the greater good of the community, not by armed men trained to generate revenue make non violations of other peoples right to life a profitable industry

Ummmm....no thanks.

I'd rather not have lynch mobs enforce laws. Judging by the average intelligence I see in the "community"...I'd take my chances with the police ANY day.

I didnt say anything about a lynch mob I am simply saying that in my opinion the greater good of common people should not be underestimated. I dont like the fact that in my home town I get cynical cops coming from larger cities like New York to my little town with their attitudes and their methods that are more reminiscent of the actual criminals they are trying to actually catch, hell i have been beat up by a cop for asking to see his badge and ID simply put I have never been mugged, been drawn down on, extorted, harrassed or anything like that by so called criminals however all things i have mentioned has happened to me by the police.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher

And people do have the power to change the government....it is called voting....not breaking laws.

There was a time in this country where people were denied the right to vote, and forced to live through discrimination, segregation and worse all because of the color of their skin.

Protests were their only option to change unjust laws.

While this fiasco here does not compare, it does show the effectiveness of protest in these times, and the speed in which it can spread and reach millions of people.

This of course would have been entirely different, IF these cops had not be so predictable and taken the bait.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher

And people do have the power to change the government....it is called voting....not breaking laws.

How's that working out for you? Or, for the rest of America for that matter in lieu of the bills passed last Thursday?

Unconstitutional laws do need to be broken, over and over again until they are abolished for good.

Edit to Add: And another thing, our Founding Fathers believed in civil disobedience and dissent, they actually said it was our duty as American citizens. Sometimes you just have to break the law for a larger message to be heard.

Originally posted by hadriana
reply to post by fleabit

 

There was a LEGAL avenue to use when protesting blacks having to sit on the back of the bus too.

But Rosa Parks said to heck with that, that law preventing me from doing this is NOT just.

And she sat where she wanted to sit, as the white people could.

This IS civil disobedience, and when laws are unjust, it is JUST as much our DUTY in a democracy as following the law.

So sayeth Thoreau. SO sayeth the founders of the US Constitution. (When in times...)
So sayeth ME.

Right.. because dancing in front of a memorial, by a guy who obviously is doing it to promote his agenda, doing it in a spot he knows is not allowed, is JUST LIKE slavery and the black civil rights movement.

There are things to be outraged over. Not being able to dance in front of a memorial isn't one of them.

Kokesh has been arrested on numerous occasions for doing this exact same thing. You do know that protestors like that are TRYING to get arrested, right? They do all in their power to anger the authorities, so they get arrested, or even better, attacked. When I served in the military, I was part of the riot control squad in San Francisco. We had plenty of protests there. And we were trained repeatedly on what NOT to do. Where not to hit (which is almost everywhere), and how to stay calm as they insult you and spit in your face, which they do. Heck, they even had Rent-a-Mob back then - professional protestors whose job it was was to get arrested, so they could draw attention to the issue.

So excuse me if I don't feel a great surge of patriotism because some activist does a jig in front of a memorial, for the sole purpose of getting arrested.

Somebody claimed that the people who danced should have tried to changed the system with voting rather then dancing. That would have been the right thing to do, right?

WRONG! A system that has voting but lacks free speech is called "a dictatorship". If voting is not backed with free speech and freedom of assembly, then the ballots are not worth anything. This is just a fact of life.

Originally posted by nidstav
Somebody claimed that the people who danced should have tried to changed the system with voting rather then dancing. That would have been the right thing to do, right?

WRONG! A system that has voting but lacks free speech is called "a dictatorship". If voting is not backed with free speech and freedom of assembly, then the ballots are not worth anything. This is just a fact of life.

There are reasons they make laws as they do. They are not trying to suppress the people. People can protest almost frigging ANYWHERE. Heck, there is a protest within 3 blocks of my office building in some direction almost every week. Perhaps because families visit such things as this memorial, is why they don't want an out of hand protest.. you think? There are reasons. It's not just to anger Mr. Kokesh.

There mere fact that most of you can even post the stuff you do here, proves that freedom of speech is alive and strong. Was Adam planning a massive movement for government reformation that needed to occur at that monument? No.. I didn't think so. He just picked a spot where he knew he would get arrested for doing it, and went at it. Mission accomplished. And seems he is getting his desired reaction - outrage at our evil, wicked government for their dancing dictatorship.

reply to post by fleabit

Were Ghandi and MLK trying to get arrested? Maybe. Why? Because they knew injustice was everywhere, and they chose to bring it to the attention of others.

Your right that Adam was trying to get arrested, or at least he had to know it was likely. The question you should be asking is how is it legal for him to be arrested for what he did?

I know some Judge ruled such and such, but does that not somehow negate the first amendment?

The purpose was to show that people in this country cannot exercise basic free expression, and basic free assembly.

Yayay.... They should vote to change laws... Kokesh ran for congress, and it did not work. We have voted again and again, but they still keep taking more rights.

Eventually you have to make a choice. Surrender and live on your knees, or make some waves to point out the injustices of this world.