Militarists, Drug Warriors, and Heresy-Hunters: The Anti-Ron Paul Axis of "Decency"

Toxic smugness: Google the term "Backpfeifengesicht."

Newt Gingrich, lapsed adulterer, impenitent warmonger, and self-appointed“teacher of civilization,” has excommunicated RonPaul and his supporters from the ranks of human decency. A similar anathema hasbeen pronounced by left-wingheresy hunter David Neiwert -- a former sidekick to the degenerate fraudnamed Morris Dees – and many other self-appointed political “watchdogs.” 

Those banishment decrees condemn Dr. Paul and his supporters forrejecting the fundamental tenet of statism – the belief that officiallysanctioned lethal coercion is the key to social progress. 

"I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside themainstream of virtually every decent American," insisted Gingrich in a CNNinterview. Although Gingrich alluded to the manufactured controversy overdecades-old newsletters published by Dr. Paul that contained supposedlyoffensive material dealing with matters of political correctness, Gingrich’schief complaint – which he has reiterated on many occasions – is that Dr.Paul seeks to end America’s interventionist foreign policy and the God-awful wars that policy entails. 

Gingrich has also dismissed Dr. Paul’s constituency as beinglimited to “peoplewho want to legalize drugs.” Unlike Gingrich – who used government-proscribed canabinoids as ayoung adult – Ron Paul has never used such illicit substances nor condoned their non-medical use, whileunderstanding that no government has the moral right to punish individuals who consume them as they see fit. In 1988 – at a time when, according to Gingrich andother detractors, Paul was peddling racist propaganda – Dr.Paul was denouncing the racist roots of the so-called War on Drugs. Gingrich,on the other hand, has endorsedthe execution of first-time drugoffenders who possess trivial amounts of narcotics. 

For Gingrich and the dominant militarist wing of the GOP, itis rank indecency to oppose the mass murder of foreigners through aggressivewar overseas, and to leave individuals free to choose what mood-altering substances they consume, if any. For “Progressives” of Neiwert’s ilk, it is similarly uncivilized totreat Americans as adults capable of managing their own affairs, and choosing theirown associations, free from the directives of bureaucrats and social engineerswhose mandates are backed by the threat of deadly force.

Neiwert volubly disapproved of foreign war when GeorgeW. Bush was in power, but found other things to complain about once Obamaascended to the Imperial Purple. A deeper problem than such facile and predictablehypocrisy is the insistence – which Neiwert shares with many other figures onthe academic Left -- that war and military occupation are morally superior topeaceful, market-centered action in dealing with institutionalized bigotry. 

“The hand-wringing about whether Paul is a racist or notreally is beside the point,” declaredNeiwert in a typically sanctimonious outpouring. “Labels really becomeinconsequential when the real issue is how their politics would play out on theground if they achieved power.” He denounces a supposed “monstrous bind spot inlibertarianism – namely, their apparent belief that the only element ofAmerican political life capable of depriving Americans of their rights is thegovernment….”

Actually, the core libertarian tenet is the non-aggressionaxiom (an application of the Golden Rule), which recognizes that it is anunalloyed wrong for anybody to commitaggressive violence against the person or property of another human being. Libertariansdo not exempt private actors from that principle. We refuse to exempt thegovernment from it, as well – and this is what is deemed unacceptable by collectivistsof Neiwert’s ilk, who believe that all good things in life begin withofficially sanctioned coercion. 

Consider, for example, Neiwert’s claim that it waslibertarian-leaning conservatives (or their philosophical ancestors) in theaftermath of the War Between the States, who “led the resistance toReconstruction that overturned the verdict of the war….” 

Neiwert’s use of the term “verdict” in this fashionresonates with the view expressed by Thrasymachus,the notorious sophist depicted in Plato’s Republic– namely, that “in all states there is the same principle ofjustice, which is the interest of the government; and as thegovernment must be supposed to have power, the only reasonableconclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice,which is the interest of the stronger.”

In Neiwert’s moral universe, only incorrigibly hatefulpeople question “verdicts” imposed through mass slaughter and propertydestruction.

The “Reconstruction,” it must be remembered, was anundisguised military occupation of the conquered South, in which “wholesalecorruption, intimidation of new voters by the thousands and tens of thousands,political assassinations, riots, [and] revolutions … were the order of the day,”as Dr. Paul Leland Haworth wrote in his1912 study Reconstruction and Union,1865-1912. 

The objective that inspired Reconstructionwas not a vision of civicequality, but rather a desire to destroy the troublesome Southern aristocracy, whichwas seen as an impediment to the designs of the Northern corporatist elite. 

“I was satisfied, and have beenall the time, that the problem of war consists in the awful fact that thepresent class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than inthe conquest of territory,” wrote General Sherman to his wife (in a letterquoted in VictorDavis Hanson’s book The Soul of Battle). In what Hanson approvinglycalled Sherman’s war of “terror” against the South, the General warned thatthose who refused to display a properly submissive posture would be “crushedlike flies on a wheel.” 

"Good Indians," by Sherman's definition, at Wounded Knee.

Sherman, and his fellow stateterrorist Philip Sheridan, would follow the same approach in dealing with thePlains Indians, who also had the temerity to claim a measure of independence fromthe supposed authority of the Central Government. Neiwert, interestingly,addresses that horrifying historican episode in his recent book TheEliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.

In a chapter dealing with "Eliminationism in America,”Neiwert describes some of the atrocities committed against the Plains Indiansby U.S. military forces commanded by  Sheridan and Sherman. He then devotesthe rest of the book to ritual execration of "neo-Confederates." That category must include anybody who understands that war to reclaim and “reconstruct”the South was a bloody prelude to the slaughter of the Plains Indians, theimperial war of conquest in the Philippines, and contemporary campaigns ofhumanitarian bloodshed that have blessed the lives of “people of color” in suchplaces as Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Neiwert, who is consistently oblivious to the implicationsof his own research, also points out that the Ku Klux Klan’s early-20^thCentury revival began when it was embraced by local governments (including somein the Midwest) as "an auxiliary police outfit" to enforce lawsagainst bootlegging. The Klan, of course, is the marquee hate group that hasserved as such a profitable foil for Neiwert’s mentor, Morris Dees – and it’squite possible that group would have disappeared permanently had it not becomea government sub-contractor in the first War on Drugs. 

This brings up a very important point: If Morris Dees andhis comrades at the SPLC are genuinely agitated over institutionalizeddiscrimination, why have they never publicly uttered a syllable of condemnationfor the patently racist “War on Drugs”? 

One possibility is suggested by the fact that thecontemporary SPLC, like the Ku Klux Klan of roughly a century ago, is aquasi-private adjunct to lawenforcement agencies that profit extravagantly from Prohibition. Dees istoo canny and cynical to disturb that lucrative arrangement by protesting aboutthe costs inflicted by Prohibition in terms of the lives and liberties of blackand Hispanic Americans. After all, complaints of that kind are the sort ofthing one hears from indecent, irresponsible extremists like Ron Paul. 

David Neiwert and other self-anointed custodians of socialjustice insist that Ron Paul and his supporters have somehow inherited the sins of bigoted people whodied long before they were born, and prospectively share the guilt of those whomight do horrible things if federal power were curtailed. Meanwhile, thepresident supported by Neiwert and his ideological kin is massacring innocent “people of color” in at leastthree countries, and escalating a domestic Drug War that is rife with racialprofiling and racial disparities in sentencing guidelines.  

 The mass slaughter of brown people abroad, and massincarceration of brown people at home, are a price Neiwert and his ilk arewilling to pay to preserve a system that can regiment societal arrangements totheir liking. In that system, as Neiwert candidly admits, social “verdicts” areimposed and upheld through state-licensed murder, rather than achieved through peacefulcooperation. 

Professor George P. Fletcher of Columbia Law School provides an incisive description of the ideological foundation of that system in his valuable book The Secret Constitution. 

Fletcher, anunabashed Marxist, is difficult to dismiss as a “neo-Confederate,” yet heagrees with the revisionist view that the war waged by the North was not aneffort to "preserve the Union," to emancipate the slaves, or (asLincoln absurdly claimed) a crusade to restore the pre-war constitutionalorder. Instead, that war was intended to consolidate a confederation of statesinto a unitary regime governed by what Fletcher calls a "New ConstitutionalOrder." The founding premise of that New Order is that "the federalgovernment, victorious in warfare, must continue its aggressive interventionin the lives of its citizens." (Emphasis added.) That "aggressive intervention" inescapably involves the threat -- and, increasingly, the exercise -- of deadly force.

Newt Gingrich and David Neiwert -- and the ideological cliques they represent -- disagree about a great deal,but they agree that “decency” in political affairs is measured by one’s willingnessto support State-sanctioned murder as the central organizing principle ofsociety.

 Once again, thank you!

My family and I wish to express our continued gratitude for the generous support so many of you have offered to Pro Libertate. This means more to us that we can adequately express. God bless you all. 

On another matter: I have been curating the news blog for Republic magazine; please pay that site a visit, and -- if it meets with your approval -- spread the word. 

Be sure to check out Republic magazine! 

Dum spiro, pugno!

Their Right to Kill, Our Duty To Die: The Murder of Otto Zehm

Otto Zehm, a mentally handicapped, 36-year-old unemployedjanitor, wasbeaten to death in a Spokane convenience store in March 2006.

"All I wanted was a Snickers bar," pleaded the battered and bloody man before he was gagged by his assailant.

On November4, Karl Thompson, the man convicted of killing Zehm, was taken to jail.  Severaldozen members of Thompson’s gang were gathered outside the courtroom – most ofthem proudly wearing the colors – to “show their honor” by offering themurderer a public salute. Thompson – whose hands weren’t cuffed, inviolation of long-established rules – smiled and returned the gesture.  Zehm’s still-grieving mother and several otherrelatives stood just a few feet away. 

The gang in question is the Spokane Police Department, whicheven now refuses to acknowledge that Thompson – who was a nominee to becomeChief at the time he murdered Zehm – ever did anything wrong when he clubbed,tased, and suffocated a terrified, innocent man who did nothing to provoke theattack, and who put up no violent resistance to the assault. 

 Zehm had done custodial work at Fairchild Air Force Base andwaswell-known, and equally well-liked, by many people in his neighborhood,some of whom were aware that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He wasin the daily habit of visiting a convenience store called Zip Trip to purchasejunk food – usually Pepsi and a candy bar. 

On March 18, 2006, Zehm retrieved some money at an ATM nearZip Trip. Something in his behavior struck two girls as odd, so they called thepolice. Although there was no reason to believe that Zehm had committed acrime, Thompson entered the store as if he were pursuing a dangerous fugitive.Security video documents that Thompson approached Zehm from behind, whileretrieving his custom-made, over-sized ironwood nightstick.

Thompson introduced himself to Zehm by shouting at him todrop the two-liter bottle of Pepsi. According to the officer, the startled andpuzzled man responded by quite reasonably asking, “Why?” Thompson interpretedthat Zehm’s fleeting non-compliance as an immediate and intolerable threat toofficer safety. So he rushed at the terrified man and began to beat him withhis nightstick – clubbing him first in the legs, then on the shoulders, neck,and head. Blows to the head are defined as lethal strikes under the SpokanePD’s use-of-force policy, justifiable only when a suspect threatens the life ofa police officer or bystanders. 

Asthe security video demonstrates, Zehm never put up a fight. He retreatedfrom Thompson, and then made a pitiable attempt to use his bottle of soda todeflect blows aimed at his face. Thompson escalated his assault by tasering himat least three times. Thompson was eventually joined by six other other policeofficers. Eventually, Thompson was actually sitting on Zehm, who was face-downon the floor.

The victim was hog-tied in a “four-pointrestraint,” meaning that his hands were shackled to his ankles. Departmentpolicy guidelines emphasize that suspects restrained in this fashion are neverto be placed face-down, since this posture can result in “positional asphyxia.”Yet Zehm was left in that position for about seventeen minutes, and at onepoint an officer actually pulled his feet backwards – which increased the riskof suffocation by placing pressure on the victim’s diaphragm. 

After emergency personnel arrived, they were instructed to digthe Taser barbs out of Zehm’s flesh. They were also asked to provide a“non-rebreathing” oxygen mask; this was placed over the victim’s face,supposedly to prevent him from assaulting the officers by spitting on them.This mask was not designed or intended to be used without being attached to anoxygen supply. Once the mask was placed on Zehm’s face, the traumatized andpanicking man – who was already at severe risk of hypoxia – was forced tobreathe through an easily obstructed opening roughly the size of a quarter. 

Thomspon, immediately after assaulting Zehm.

 Did Thompson and his cohorts deliberately set out tosuffocate Zehm? Every step they took led inexorably to that outcome, andincompetence can only explain so much. That was the outcome, whether it was theresult of deliberate malice or depraved indifference. Zehm stopped breathingabout seventeen minutes after Thompson’s initial assault, and died in a nearbyhospital about two days later. But the police department’s assault on Zehmcontinued while he struggled for life in the hospital, and didn’t end with hisdeath.

On the day of the beating, Police Chief Jim Nicks told themedia that Zehm had “lunged” at Thompson, thereby threatening his life. Otherofficers claimed that Zhem had a prior arrest for assaulting an officer. Bothclaims were conscious, deliberate lies. 

About two weeks after Zehm’s death, Detective TerryFerguson, who “investigated” the incident for the Spokane PD, filed a reportclaiming that none of the seven officers who assaulted Zehm committed a crime.Ferguson had little time to investigate what was done to Zehm, because she was toobusy investigating the victim. The detective persuaded a judge to issuewarrants to pry into every aspect of Zehm’s medical, employment, and personalhistory, on the pretext that the deceased was suspected of “assaulting a policeofficer.” This was actually an unsuccessful effort to exhume something –anything – that could be used to denigrate the victim.

After the pressure of a threatened lawsuit, Spokane CountyProsecutor Steve Tucker released the video recordings of the assault, which heand the police had diligently suppressed. The recordings contradicted everycritical element of Thompson’s version of the event, beginning with the claim thatZehm had “lunged” at the officer. 

With no criminal charges filed against Thompson, Zehm’sfamily announced its intention to sue the City of Spokane, and the JusticeDepartment began a civil rights inquiry. In March 2009 – three years after thekilling – Chief Anne Kirkpatrick (who had replaced Chief Nicks) issued a publicstatement offering her “unequivocal support” to Thompson. “Based on all theinformation and evidence I have reviewed, I have determined that Officer KarlThompson acted consistent with the law,” Kirkpatrick insisted. 

A few months later, Chief Kirkpatrick assigned Thompson –who was, recall, the subject of a federal civil rights investigation – to helptrain other Spokane police officers how to deal with “high-risk liabilityincidents,” which have been plentiful. 

Spokane’s municipal government, whichpaid out $2.5 million to resolve police-related lawsuits between 1996 and 2007,has a policy of filing counter-suits accusing citizens of “conspiracy to misusethe judicial process.” This is made possible by a state statute intended toprotect police against supposedly frivolous lawsuits. Given all of this it’snot surprising that Chief Kirkpatrick’s unqualified endorsement of Thompson’sactions was coupled with an unyielding official line blaming the victim for hisown death. “Any injury or damage suffered by Mr. Zehm was caused solely byreason of his conduct and willful resistance,” proclaimed the City of Spokane’sofficial response to the family’s civil lawsuit. 

Mr. Zehm’s “conduct” – which, according to Chief Kirkpatrickand Spokane’s municipal government, justified the use of lethal force --consisted of doing exactly nothing. Thenagain, he was armed with a bottle ofPepsi, which apparently left the heroic Officer Thompson no choice but to stagea preemptive strike with his club and Taser. Perhaps if it had been Mt. Dew,the use of tactical nukes would have been appropriate. 

“If all [the victim] wanted to do was surrender, he couldhave done so,” insisted Officer Terry Preuninger, the Spokane PD’s SWAT TeamLeader and patrol tactics instructor, during the trial. “[Officer Thompson’s]assessment was accurate. He continued to use force. It did allow him to keepthat man from hurting him or anyone else.”

Thompson began his attack within seconds of arriving at thestore – before Zehm had a chance to “surrender.” Furthermore, the victim wasbacking away from the officer. According to Preuninger – who, as SWAT leader,approaches such situations with a militarized close-and-kill mindset – thisdidn’t matter: “Picture wrestlers or boxers. It’s definitely not an indicationthat they don’t want to hurt or assault you because they move back.”

“A police officer becomes an expert in evaluation ofbehavior or picking out little things that are different,” Preuninger assertedon the stand. Victor Boutros, chief prosecutor during the trial, treated thatclaim with laudable contempt, mockingthis supposed  preternatural gift ofdiscernment as a “Spidey sense” that “can’t be impeached by citizen eyewitnesses or video. Only [Thompson] could have seen those things.”

Furthermore, according to Preuninger, police have plenaryauthority to use lethal force even when their perceptions are in error: “Apolice officer can make a mistake. An officer could believe their [sic] lifewas in danger or they [sic] were in danger of being assaulted when in fact we couldgo back in hindsight and show that’s not true. But the force would beauthorized.” 

This is to say: From the perspective of the individual whotrains the Spokane PD regarding the use of force, Karl Thompson was completelyright – but he could have been entirely wrong, and he would still have had theauthority to kill Otto Zehm. This is because police officers, who face anall-encompassing threat from the public they supposedly protect, must beentitled to employ aggressive violence at all times, Preuninger maintains: “Ifyou approach law enforcement situations the same way you would a neighborhoodmeeting … it will directly lead to you getting murdered on the job or gettinghurt or assaulted.” 

Really? 

Between 1867and 2009, a total of 23 law Spokane County law enforcement officers –police, Sheriff’s deputies, and one member of the County Game Commission – diedin the line of duty. Eleven of them – fewer than half that total – were killedby suspected criminals. Six died in traffic accidents. Two were struck andkilled by drunk drivers. Two were fatally shot by fellow law enforcement personnelduring training exercises (one of them was killed by a police officer showingoff a quick-draw technique), and another was a game warden shot by a hunter whowas reaching for a permit. One officer died from a heart attack during SWATtraining. 

None of those line-of-duty deaths occurred because anofficer was insufficiently aggressive during one of the perilous “lawenforcement situations” that haunt Preuninger’s imagination. 

Interestingly, Spokane County – which maintainsa police Honor Guard that attends police funerals throughout the Northwest –describes itself as “third in the state for line of duty deaths.” Thisillustrates – redundantly – that law enforcement is not a particularlyhazardous occupation. In Spokane, as elsewhere, the citizen in a “lawenforcement situation” is at far greater risk than the police officer. 

 A little more than a year after Otto Zehm was murdered byThompson and his cohorts, 37-year-oldTrent Yohe, the father of a young child, was beaten, tasered, and hog-tied bySheriff’s deputies who had illegally entered his home. 

Yohe was asleep when the deputies invaded his home. The last wordshe heard before lapsing into an irreversible coma were orders from hisassailants to stop resisting. 

Shortlyafter the incident, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich admitted in an official memothat at the time Yohe – a known meth addict subject to Grand Mal seizures – “wasnever under arrest.” The County eventuallypaid $50,000 stolen from local tax victims to settle a lawsuit filed byYohe’s family. 

The deputies who murdered Yohe followed almost exactly thesame protocols used by the murderers of Otto Zehm a year earlier. Sheriff Knezovichdefiantly insistedthat he saw no reason to change those procedures. 

This isn’t to say, however, that the Sheriff wascategorically opposed to reform: In a joint press conference with ChiefKirkpatrick, Knezovich indignantly protested the use of the term “hog-tied” todescribe the method used by officers to truss their prone and helpless victims;the appropriate term, he insisted, is “hobbled.” 

That promptedSeattle Spokesman-Review columnistDoug Clark to compose a lexicon of law enforcement euphemisms. 

In keeping with Sheriff Knezovich’s delicate sensibilities, Clarksuggested that language like the following would be suitable: “Trent Yohe, amethamphetamine addict, was holiday gift-wrapped after a spirited difference ofopinion with sheriff’s deputies.” What about the eyewitness report thatdeputies had kicked out the victim’s false teeth? Easy: Yohe wasn’t brutalized –he “participated in a police-assisted dental plan.” And henceforth, a Taserwill be called a “joy buzzer.”

Clark’s essay was aimed at the Spokane PD’s institutionalvanity, a target that’s impossible to miss. This prompted Officer Preuninger – whowept openly when Thompson was taken away to jail -- to rebuke the impudent 

Mundane via a letterto the editor in which thedecorated SWAT team leader struck the familiar pose ofpoliceman-as-maligned savior.

 “Sleep well, Mr. Clark, because no matter how much youinsult me, no matter how low you go to belittle my profession, if you findyourself in harm’s way, you need only call and one of us will come and risk ourlife to save yours: an irony I am quite sure you can never fathom,” whinedPreuninger in a tone worthy of a passive-aggressive teenage girl. 

As is almost always the case in such matters, it is OfficerPreuninger who suffers from a severe irony deficiency: None of the officers hetrained intervened to save Otto Zehm when that innocent man was being beaten todeath by Karl Thompson, who was a “mentor” to the entire force and theirpreferred candidate to be chief. 

Following Thompson’s guilty verdict, U.S. Attorney MikeOrmsby asserted that “This is not an indictment of our entire police force.” Oh,yes it is. 

Thank you, once again!

On behalf of the entire Grigg family, I want to tell you how much we appreciate your very generous donations. This means more than I can adequately express. Have a wonderful Christmas! 

Be sure to check out Republic magazine:

Dum spiro, pugno!

Send In The Drones: The Predator State Goes Domestic

“Eventually, we’ll have to putan end to this, one way or another.”

SheriffKelly Janke of North Dakota’s Nelson County utteredthat ominous sentence in mid-September, during what the local media giddilydescribed as a stand-off with local farmer Rodney Brossart and his family. Bythat time, Sheriff Janke, with the help of the Department of Homeland Securityand the U.S. Air Force, had already run the table where “non-lethal”means of compelling the family to surrender were concerned. This included everything from the Taser used duringBrossart’s June 23 arrest to the precedent-setting use of a Predator-B droneto conduct surveillance of the home several days later to facilitate the arrestof the farmer’s three sons.

The most recent conflict betweenJanke’s department and Brossart began when a half-dozen stray cattle wanderedonto the family’s farm, which is located near the tiny village of Lakota(roughly 100 miles northwest of Fargo). Brossart, who reportedly believed thatthe cattle were unclaimed and thus belonged to him under a disputed interpretationof open-range law, refused to turn them over to the Sheriff. 

Sheriff Janke.

A team of deputies tasered the55-year-old farmer and took him into custody. His daughter Abby, frantic forthe safety of her father, tried to intervene; for “striking” the sanctifiedpersonage of a deputy, she was arrested and charged with assault. When Brossart’swife Susan refused to help the deputies locate what they described as “illegal”firearms, she, too, was arrested and charged with lying to law enforcementofficers (whoare trained to lie and cando so without legal consequence). 

When deputies returned thefollowing day, they were reportedly confronted by Brossart’s three sons –Jacob, Alex, and Thomas -- who were allegedly carrying the rifles the policehad tried to confiscate the previous day. 

This led Sheriff Janke to escalatethe confrontation to a full-spectrum military response – including, in the wordsof the Los Angeles Times, elements “from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWATteam, a bomb squad, ambulances, and deputy sheriffs from three other counties. Healso called in a Predator B drone.” That unmanned aerial vehicle, identical tothose used in CIA-directed missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, was suppliedby the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP), an affiliate ofthe Department of Homeland Security.

“As the unmanned aircraftcircled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nosehelped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed,” continued theTimes.  “Police rushed inand made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator,the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

That was the “one way” Janke hadalready tried. What, pray tell, would have been the “other” – short ofequipping the drone with Hellfire missiles and using it to annihilate theBrossart family as suspected terrorists? 

If this had happened, theBrossarts would not be the first Americans to be killed by way of a drone-firedmissile. That unwanted distinction is owned by Anwar al-Awlaki and his son,Adbulrahman, who were killed inseparate drone strikes in Yemen about three weeks apart. Abdulrahman, a16-year-old boy who was born in Denver, wasmurdered while eating dinner with his 17-year-old cousin, who was alsokilled in the missile strike. 

The originalstory was that Abdulrahman was a “suspected militant,” and thus a “legitimate”target. He was actually a teenage boy frantically trying to find his father,whose name was on a roster of terrorist suspects who had been sentenced to summaryexecution by a secretive executive branch committee that answers to nobody.

As a result of a dispute involving a half-dozen cows, the Brossart family found itself treatedas if they were terrorists. The CBP’s drone fleet is described by the agency as acounter-terrorism asset. For the act “brandishing” legally owned rifles in thepresence of armed sheriff’s deputies, the three Brossart sons have been chargedwith “terrorizing” law enforcement personnel -- fragile, timid creatures that they are. Most significantly, however,the family had been enrolled on a roster of domestic terrorists – one compiled not bythe Obama administration, but rather by the quasi-private Stasi calling itselfthe SouthernPoverty Law Center (SPLC).

According to the SPLC,Brossart’s family received special attention because Sheriff Janke “knew theBrossarts were followers of another Lakota resident, Roger Elvick, one of theoriginal gurus of the bizarre but remarkably resilient sovereign citizensmovement.”
For the past several years, theSPLC has been indoctrinating local law enforcement agencies in the belief thatthe sovereign citizens movement – and, for that matter, the entire “radicalRight,” a label the SPLC applies to anyone more conservative than Hugo Chavez –is an undifferentiated mass of menace and a particular threat to lawenforcement. This campaign is perfectly calibrated to play on the fears ofpolice, for whom there is no higher priority than “officer safety.” 

Little of consequence wouldresult if the SPLC were simply a private pressure group. However, theorganization seamlessly interfaces with a number of government agencies,including the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training(SLATT) program, which is funded through the Justice Department’s Bureau ofJustice Assistance. National and regional law enforcement seminars havebeen used to cultivate alarm among police officers regarding the supposedlyall-encompassing terrorist threat posed by domestic “extremists.”

During the June confrontation, SheriffJanke actually took time to respond to an interview request from the SPLC’s Intelligence Report.

“We’re trying to reach out tothe family to get them to surrender,” Janke told the publication. “It’s notcommon for people to brandish weapons against law enforcement, and to have themall be family members is unique. [It tells me] they’re up to something, they’replanning something, they have some different beliefs…. We’re meeting with ateam of experts to find out the best possible way to resolve this.”

 Janke’sbelief that the Brossarts were “planning” something sinister proved to be entirelyunfounded. In November, months after the family had refused to attend an August26 preliminary hearing, RodneyBrossart and his son Jacob – both of whom were unarmed – were arrested while finishingthe fall harvest. Alex and Thomas, along with their sister Abby, were arrested“without incident” at the family’s home.  

During what the local media –which dutifully regurgitated a porridge of alarmist sound-bites it had been fedby the SPLC – called the “stand-off,” Brossart gave one brief interview inwhich he insisted that his family were not “violent people.” Janke, on theother hand, did his best to depict the family as a menace to the public.

“We have been able to associatethem with an individual that has served time in the State Pen that is givingthem advice,” the Sheriffclaimed in a September 13 interview, referring to Elvick. By that time, Elvick– who had briefly lived in an apartment in Lakota – had apparentlydeparted for California. But his geographic proximity to the Brossarts wasapparently enough for the latter to be “associated” with the ex-convict, andthus tainted as potential domestic terrorists. 

This concept of being “associated”with a suspected terrorist is impressively elastic and immensely dangerous.Section 1031 of the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NADA), whichprovides for indefinite military detention of suspectedterrorists, permits the military to target anyone the Federal governmentdecides is “associated” with an identified terrorist threat. 

“Is a terrorist under this lawnecessarily a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban?” asksthe estimable Matt Taibbi of RollingStone in his analysis of the NADA. “Or is it merely someone who is `engagedin hostilities against the United States’? Here’s where I think we’re in verydangerous territory. We have two very different but similarly large protestmovements going on right now in the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement. What ifone of them is linked to a violent act? What if a bomb goes off in a police stationin Oakland, or an IRS office in Texas? What if the FBI then linked those actsto Occupy or the Tea Party?”

Where Sheriff Janke wasconcerned, a potential terrorist was anyone he could “associate” with anex-convict described by the SPLC as a guru of the “sovereign citizens”movement. He also alluded to the “history we’ve had with the family over time” asa cause for concern.

In 1996, Rodney Brossart was chargedwith violating a state land use ordinance by plowing and seeding a section lineon his own property. Although he was found guilty on that charge, the verdict wasoverturned by the state Supreme Court. This episode was one of severalinstances in which the Brossarts have come into conflict with the CountySheriff’s Office.

Five years ago, Brossart wascharged with disorderly conduct and “Preventing Arrest” after shouting atsheriff’s deputies and “tensing his arm” when one of them laid hands on him totake him into custody. He was acquitted on the first charge, and found guiltyof the second. That case was likewise appealed to the state Supreme Court. 

Citing facts that were uncontested at trial, a brief filed onBrossart’s behalf notes that he “did not at any time threaten the officers,or become physically aggressive toward them. At worst, he simply did not complywith their unlawful orders when they attempted to arrest him.”

“Brossart did not take anyaggressive stance, did not swing, or attempt to strike the officers in any way,”continues the brief. “He was simply verbally combative, and uncooperative.” 

Thedeputies, on the other hand, employed what can reasonably be described as excessiveforce by throwing him to the ground and employing “the mandibular anglepressure point technique upon him” – a pain compliance technique in which the thumb is placed at thehinge of the jaw below the right ear. 

North Dakota law (Section12.1-05-07 of the Century Code) recognizes the right of an individual to resistunlawful arrest and excessive force, observes the brief:

“When faced with a man who wasnot physically aggressive, and was simply verbally loud and angry, anduncooperative, it was unnecessary for both officers to slam him to into theground, and use the mandibular angle pressure point upon him to effectuate anillegal arrest. Brossart was then within his rights to resist the unlawful andexcessive force used in the arrest by the officers.”

Thus the troubled “history” towhich Janke refers is one in which a family living on a small farm in ruralNorth Dakota has been repeatedly abused under color of official “authority,”and have chosen to pursue their grievances through the courts, rather thanthrough armed violence. They have endured years of what they regard asharassment and surveillance by law enforcement personnel: During the “standoff”this fall, one Lakota resident told a local television station that “when RodneyBrossart used to attend school board meetings there was always a police officerpresent.” As a result, the family decided to home-school the younger children. 

The Brossarts may well beeccentric or even misguided. They might be regarded by some as poor neighbors. Butonly those with a unique gift for dishonesty – and a large measure of cravenness– could depict them as a Predator-worthy menace. The SPLC is amply endowed withthe former, and Sheriff Janke’s department apparently boasts a large measure ofthe latter.  

As a result, we’ve seen thefirst test run of the vertically integrated Homeland Security State, in which yourfriendly local sheriff or police chief, using hit lists compiled by the SPLC,can call in the drones to help round up anybody he considers to be potentiallytroublesome. 

 Thank you so much!

I am deeply grateful to everyone who has responded so generously to the appeal at the end of my last installment. Over the next few days I will extend personal thanks to each of you. This means more to me and my family than I can adequately express. God bless you. 

Be sure to check out Republic magazine

 Dum spiro, pugno!

The Right to Resist: Will Michigan Repeal the "Rapist Doctrine"?

“Don’tresist – you’ll just make it worse.”

Untilrecently, the only people expected to make that demand of their innocent victimswere rapists and police officers. Fortunately, women are no longer expected tosubmit to sexual assault, but rather to fight back by whatever means are available– unless the assailant is one of the State’s costumed enforcers, in which caseresisting sexual assault would be a felony.

Thisadmission was pried from Gregory J. Babbitt, assistant prosecuting attorney forMichigan’s Ottawa County, during the October 4 oralargument before the state supreme court in the case of People v. Moreno. At issue in that case is the question of whether a citizenhas a legally protected right to resist an unlawful search or unjustifiedarrest by a police officer.

Ina colloquy with Babbitt, associate justice MichaelCavanaugh described a scenario in which a woman in police custodywas sexually assaulted during a body search. In that situation, Cavanaughinquired, could the victim be charged under the State’s “resisting andobstructing” statute?

 “Technically,you could do that,” Babbitt grudgingly replied, while insisting that “as aprosecutor, I wouldn’t do that.” Rather than putting up physical resistance andthereby risking criminal prosecution, the victim should simply endure the assaultand then file a civil complaint after the fact. That approach, of course, would most likely result in asettlement that protects the offender at the expense of the local tax victimpopulation. 

Ifcitizens have no right to resist illegal violations of their property andpersons by the police, “What is left of the Fourth Amendment?” one of thejudges asked Babbitt. 

“Well,life isn’t perfect,” Babbitt replied with a shrug – which to people of his ilkmeans that in any conflict between individual liberty and institutionalizedpower, it is the former that must yield. Otherwise, mere Mundanes “will be ableto make the determination as to whether the police officers [are] actingproperly or not,” he said, his voice freighted with horror over the prospect. “Wecan’t have individuals ... making that decision in the heat of the moment.”

Ofcourse, that is precisely what Babbitt insisted must be done – as long as the “individuals”in question are emissaries of the State. That claim iscomplicated by the fact that Michigan’s self-defense act explicitly recognizesthe right to use appropriate defensive force to prevent the “imminent unlawfuluse of force by another individual” – without limiting the application of thatright to aggression committed by private citizens. 

Furthermore,as the Michigan Court of Appeals recognized in a 1999 ruling (People v. Wess), the statute -- as it read atthe time -- expressly recognized the individual right "to use such reasonableforce as is necessary to prevent an illegal attachment and to resist an illegalarrest."

In the dicta of that ruling the court pleaded with thelegislature to change the law:

"Weshare the concerns of other jurisdictions that the right to resist an illegalarrest is an outmoded and dangerous doctrine, and we urge our Supreme Court toreconsider this doctrine at the first available opportunity.... [W]e see nobenefit to continuing the right to resist an otherwise peaceful arrest made bya law enforcement officer, merely because the arrestee believes the arrest isillegal. Given modern procedural safeguards for criminal defendants, the`right' only preserves the possibility that harm will come to the arrestingofficer or the defendant." 

Ofcourse, there is no such thing as a “peaceable arrest.” Forcible detention is aviolent act, as is an armed invasion of one’s property. Like similar measuresprotecting the common law right to resist arrest, Michigan’s SDA recognized thereis no moral reason why a police officer’s judgment that a search or arrest is “legal”is any sounder or more authoritative than that of any other citizen. 

However,the Michigan state legislature – prompted by theCourt of Appeals -- modified the relevant section of the state code (MCL705.81d) by removing the clause recognizing the common law right to prevent anunlawful arrest (that is, an armed kidnapping) by a police officer. 

Thiscreated a potential conflict between the SDA and the state’s resisting andobstructing statute – and that conflict came to a head threeyears ago when two Holland, Michigan police officers attempted to searchthe home of Angel Moreno without a warrant.

OnDecember 30, 2008, Officers Matthew Hamberg and Troy DeWeis knocked on Moreno’sdoor while searching for an individual suspected of violating probation. Morenomade the mistake of speaking with Hamberg through an open door, thereby giving the policeman an opportunity to say that he detected the odor of marijuana (even though DeWeis did not).

WhenMoreno refused to consent to a search, Hamberg said that he would get a warrant– and then lied by saying that it was necessary for him to enter the house inorder to “secure” it. 

To his credit, Moreno told Hamberg to get off his porch,and began to close the door. Hamberg bulled his way into the house, instigatinga brief scuffle that ended when Hamberg told his companionto attack the victim with his Taser. (Had DeWeis acted as the law requires, rather than out of tribal loyalty to his State-licensed gang, he would have intervened to prevent the invasion of Moreno's home.) Although a trivial amount of marijuana wasfound, no drug-related charges were filed. For trying to resist a patently illegalhome invasion, Moreno charged with felonious assault on a police officer. 

TheState admits that Hamberg’s search was “unlawful,” which means that he was actingas an armed, violent intruder, rather than as a peace officer. This means thatMoreno had a legally recognized right to employ deadly force, if necessary, todefend himself and his home. As the Michigan State Supreme Court acknowledgedin People v. Riddle (2002), “regardlessof the circumstances one who is attacked in his dwelling is never required toretreat where it is otherwise necessary to exercise deadly force inself-defense. When a person is in his `castle,’ there is no safer place toretreat….”

Michigancourts have been predictably reluctant to apply that principle to the mostviolent segment of society – the State’s armed enforcement caste. 

Ina 2004 ruling (People v. Ventura) dealing with the right toresist an unlawful arrest, the same Michigan Court of Appeals, which had badgeredthe state legislature to modify the SDA, cited that modification as a positivestatement of legislative intent. In a transcendently cynical passage, the courtwrote that "it is not within our province to disturb our Legislature'sobvious affirmative choice to modify the traditional common-law rule that aperson may resist an unlawful arrest." 

The same court had previously neglected to show such pious respect for the "Legislature's obvious affirmative choice" in explicitly protecting the right to resist arrest. However, under state precedents more than a century old, the Michigan legislature cannot tacitly repudiate a common law right. As Justice Brian K. Zahra noted during the oral arguments, the legislature is required to make an "express abrogation" of protection for a common law right.

Duringhis presentation before the court, Babbitt -- in the mistaken belief that he had precedent on his side -- repeatedly insistedthat deletion of the passage recognizing the right to resist arrest was materially equivalent to formal abrogation of that common law right. This was dictated by the  “modernview" of the matter, which is that “we don’t want violence between the citizens and thepolice.”

Indeed:The modern – which is to say, Leninist – view is that all violent encountersbetween citizens and agents of the State should be one-sided affairs, with thelatter entitled to exercise “power without limit, resting directly on force”and the latter required to endure whatever is inflicted on them. 

 Remarkably,Babbitt’s argument was met with withering skepticism by several members of thecourt. Among them was ChiefJustice Robert P. Young, Jr., who asked Babbitt what “textual” supportexisted for the proposition that the legislature had abrogated the common lawright to resist arrest.

“Ican’t answer that question, because it doesn’t say `We are abrogating the commonlaw right to use self-defense,'” Babbitt replied, perspiration condensing on hisbrow as he realized where the conversation was headed. 

“Ithink you answered it, then,” Young replied, thereby -- one imagines -- causing that trickle offlop sweat to become a torrent. “Don’t you lose if you can’t answer thatquestion?”   

Babbitt was allowed a briefinterval in which to dither and dissimulate before Young summarized the matterwith brutal concision:

“I’mposing a very simple question to you, the answer to which, I think, isdispositive: If the arrest is unlawful, if the intrusion is unlawful, and aphysical melee ensues because of the resistance of the resident, under thecommon law rule, he can do that…. You don’t win [the case] unless you canpersuade us that the [statute under which] he was charged abrogates the commonlaw rule. Tell me why, when the text is silent on the common law rule, youstill win.”

Atthat point, Babbitt must have understood – but could hardly be expected toadmit – that as a matter of both common and statutory law, the “rapist doctrine”is indefensible. 

It’s quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the statesupreme court will contrive some way to preserve that doctrine. If the court’sruling in State v. Moreno vindicatesthe right of citizens to resist unlawful police violence, the state legislaturewill be tag-teamed by prosecutors and police unions demanding an explicitrepudiation of that common law right.

Butwhat if the Michigan State Supreme Court definitively rejects the "rapist doctrine" -- and the state legislature doeslikewise? 

A special request

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has donated generously to keep this site up and running. If there is anyone who has yet to receive a promised copy of Global Gun Grab, please let me know (WNGrigg [at] msn [dot]com). 

When friends ask me if I'm working, I -- like may others, I'll wager -- answer: "Sure, I've got the `working' thing nailed cold, it's the `getting paid' part of the deal that has proven elusive."

Over the past couple of months I've been working with Republic magazine (please check out the website), a very worthwhile publication that, to be candid, doesn't pay well -- enough to pay the rent, but not enough to support a family of eight.

Christmas is terrifyingly close, but the end of our available financial resources is even closer. If even a portion of those of you kind enough to read my blog could pitch in a couple of dollars, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you, once again, for your kindness.

 

 

Visit Republic Magazine's website. 

        Dum spiro, pugno!