Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Murder as a Punchline
















 (Do) Fear the Reaper: A Predator-B or "Reaper" unmanned drone, one of the Regime's most celebrated kill-gadgets, takes to the skies.



The same theory of criminal conspiracy being applied to the prosecution of Michigan's Hutaree Militia would justify the arrest and trial of President Obama for conspiring to murder the Jonas Brothers. In fact, the case against Mr. Obama -- based on previous criminal conduct and the means at his disposal -- is far stronger than the single-ply tissue of speculation and innuendo that constitute the federal case against the notorious Michigan Nine. 






"[Obama's young daughters] Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys [addressing the Jonas Brothers, who were seated in the room], don't get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming."


In response, the audience rendered unto Caesar the dutiful laughter required anytime the Pontiff of the Civil Religion favors us with an insipid specimen of pre-fabricated presidential "wit." 



None of the spangled sycophants in attendance displayed a tremor of discomfort at the thought that the individual who had just made a joke about assassinating Americans by remote control actually attempted to kill a U.S. citizen -- New Mexico-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki -- by way of a Predator drone strike last December. The Obama administration, which admits to maintaining a hit list of U.S. citizens subject to summary execution, has annihilated hundreds of innocent civilians in Pakistan and elsewhere over the past year. 



Such thoughts, if they occurred to anyone in the room last Saturday, weren't allowed to taint the revelry. Perhaps at next year's dinner Obama could get his Caligula freak on, calling out individuals by name and describing various horrible things he could do to them at whim; that routine would surely bring the house down like a Predator-deployed Hellfire missile! (Drum kick.)



But seriously, folks, this kind of thing is funny -- until someone gets killed. That's the entire point: people are getting killed, at the orders of the guy who was willing to read from his Teleprompter a line intended to extort humor from the slaughter.



Some might contend that a bad joke doesn't constitute evidence of a criminal conspiracy. The people responsible for compiling the indictment against the nine Hutaree defendants apparently think otherwise, since they are treating ill-advised talk about killing people -- at least some of it best characterized as misguided juvenile attempts at humor -- as evidence of a "seditious conspiracy."



In her order granting pre-trial release (under conditions of house arrest and electronic surveillance) to the Hutaree defendants, U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts provides extensive excerpts from the evidence. This includes redacted transcripts of conversations in which militia David and Joshua Stone, Michael Meeks, and Kristopher Sickles talk about killing judges and law enforcement personnel. 


The ellipses littering the transcript are tangible evidence of cherry-picking by the prosecution. 


Even orphaned from context, however, the recorded conversations don't amount to evidence of a criminal conspiracy, but rather a tendency to engage in the worst kind of self-deluded, adolescent locker-room braggadoccio. 


Here, in its entirely, is the "evidence" adduced by the prosecutors to substantiate the supposed plot to kill police and then ambush the mourners, gleaned from a recorded conversation that occurred on February 20:



                                                                   David Stone: 


Or, or better yet, we shoot one, from a distance, high powered rifle, you sit back you take him out -- you go, kapop! -- You just shoot one. And then you just kind sit back, they'll pack out a huntin' [sic] for ya. Try to find out who you are, but they have this thing, that everybody has, and it's called a funeral. Now for that funeral, you'll have cops from every state of the country come where? To his funeral.
 
[...]


Why not just take care of the situation? Kabunk! Kabunk! [Sound effect] 


[...]


I'm thinkin' IEDs and you just blow the whole convoy up. Boom!


[...]
                                                               Kristopher Sickles


Sneak in their house, poison their milk.


[...]


                                                              David Stone

No, no, you set their house on fire and you have another team sitting back watching the local fire department try and come down the road and it's just pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! As trucks go baba, "we're over heating," Rrrr [sound effect]. "Hey, we're not gonna make it to this fire."


[...]


I mean, there's a hundred and one scenarios you could use.


(End of excerpts.)


The ellipses in the excerpt above are from the original transcript, as provided to Judge Roberts by the prosecution. We're not reading a conversation; we're being fed lurid soundbites carefully juxtaposed in a way intended to elicit maximum outrage with minimal detail.



The prosecution insists that the foregoing demonstrates a "general concept of operations" in which the defendants were preparing to ambush and murder police. But if there was an actual agreement to carry out such acts, or preparations to do the same, the relevant excerpts were left on the cutting room floor. This is the "A-list" material the prosecution cited in its effort to deny bail to a group accused of seditious conspiracy involving weapons of mass destruction. 



"Discussions about killing local law enforcement officers -- and even discussions about killing members of the Judicial Branch of Government -- do not translate to conspiracy to overthrow, or levy [war] against, the United States Government," wrote Judge Roberts. She followed with the observation that during the recording, "the Defendants laugh, make sounds, and appear to talk over one another. There is also a discussion of strippers." 



This wasn't a strategy session conducted by a terrorist cabal, but a bull session involving angry people who -- most likely under the influence of an adult libation or similar conversational lubricant -- indulged in what Roberts calls "hate-filled, venomous speech" that enjoys unconditional First Amendment protection. 


The most extensive expression of the Hutaree's "seditious" intent, Roberts points out, was a lengthy address written by David Stone that "speaks of reclaiming America, not overthrowing the United States Government."


Reduced to what John Wayne would call the "spitting out words to watch them splatter" mode of argumentation, the Feds insisted that the Hutaree defendants "pose a danger to the community because they lack respect for lawful authority." 


The prosecution could demonstrate that the Hutaree defendants had abundant contempt for the government -- what perceptive person doesn't? -- but it hasn't demonstrated that they were hostile toward lawful authority (which of itself wouldn't constitute a crime, either).



The American political tradition, beginning with that instrument of sedition called the Declaration of Independence, clearly distinguishes between government and lawful authority, making the former subordinate to the latter, which itself is vested in the people. That same literary product of irrational anti-government fanaticism also states unambiguously that there are times when defense of lawful authority requires that the people "alter or abolish" the government ruling them.


By any honest reckoning, the government ruling us is the single most promiscuous law-breaker on record, and the contempt of our rulers for the legal authority under which they supposedly operate -- the U.S. Constitution -- is inexhaustible. This helps explain why the Regime's secret police infiltrate and entrap inconsequential groups of socially marginalized people who live in rotting mobile homes, while their Dear Leader -- an individual who lives in a fortified mansion, and has at his disposal power sufficient to destroy human life everywhere -- can make puerile jokes about his ongoing murder spree.


Pro Libertate Radio -- brought to you by the Liberty News Radio Network -- is moving to the weekends! Stay tuned for additional details.

















Dum spiro, pugno!








12 comments:

Daniel Hewitt said...

The 10 year anniversary of Gitmo is approaching. Then the President can accurately use "tenner in the Gulag" joke lines also.

JdL said...

Excellent column, Mr. Grigg! Obama is proving to be every bit as horrifying as Clueless Bush. If anything, Obama is worse, as Bush's ineptitude was obvious to any intelligent observer, while Obama has a lot more people snowed. I heard that Predator joke repeated on NPR by an announcer who clearly had no inkling that it was an obscenity mouthed by a mass murderer. Our tax dollars at work!

Chris Mallory said...

It would be interesting to see what the CI said before the quotes the government gave out. I imagine it will end up being another Randy Weaver/Viper Militia type conversation where the government stooge suggests the illegal activity.

Bobert said...

I didn't vote for Bush, left it blank, but I don't remember a comment by President Bush, to do anything to boys chasing his girls and they were dating age.

The Hutaree group sounds like what we in Oklahoma call 'dumber than a stump' or someone auditioning for a remake of 'Hee Haw.' However, that's where the Fed's mentality lies in tv-land.

liberranter said...

The title of David Kramer's most recent LRC blog post "The U.S. Presidency: One Monster Follows Another" sums it all up quite nicely.

Since it has become obvious (or should have become obvious, were we a nation populated in the majority by intelligent life forms) that each occupant of the Awful Orifice is worse in some major way than his predecessor, we can only shudder at the thought of what will replace the African Virus in 2017 (yes, he will very likely "win" a second term [remember Bush in '04, when common sense dictated he'd be kicked to the curb], and NO, Ron Paul WILL NOT become president under the current rigged, corrupt system - EVER). I doubt by that time that finesse or subtlety will be a requirement for "humor" at official functions. With the imperial presidency fully metastasized, it's likely that a Caligular/Stalinesque "off with their heads" (or, in 21st Century technoparlance "send in the Predators and bomb them into the stone age!") will be perfectly acceptable, with the ever-dutiful lapdog media leading the charge and covering the event on the major new networks.

socialist utopia (pipedream) said...

*heehee* President Barry is a card! Now he should use his messiah powers and fix that oil spill and read the minds of evul terraists before they try and bomb Times Square!

dixiedog said...

Yo Will, you've been AWOL from Pro Libertate radio. What up with that? I hope life is still treating ya OK. As we all know, life is a beach, ain't it?

As for your article, no one should be surprised that Leviathan now sanctions terminating Ami citizens, albeit cloaked in statist humor. Shameless arrogance alone is bad enough, but add heaps of power to that mix and we have an unhealthy combination for any humanoid, even for an otherwise restrained specimen possessing a modicum of self-control.

However, for a humanoid who had lived and breathed political corruption daily within the confines of that urban defilement known as Chicago and now is il capo dello Stato Uniti, the character of his/her reign would tend, naturally, to be predictable and ominous. Meet the new boss, same as the ol' boss, except a darker version (no pun intended). That's literal, both on the surface and beneath the surface.

Let us know what's up, Will. Oh, and I heard you mention a while ago about starting a YT vlog or something. Is that still in the planning stage or are you readying a launch soon?

William N. Grigg said...

DD, last Friday I came down with a severe case of strep throat. Saturday morning my temp was ~106 degrees; I spent the weekend coughing and puking and spending out-of-pocket money on doctor visits and meds.

Monday I was still sick. Ditto for Tuesday -- although I was improving -- but then our van's drive line broke, leaving the beast unsteadily blocked on a hill with an incline of about 12 degrees. That happened just before air time, and it had to be attended to right then.

Tonight, I was ready to do the show -- but the sound console freaked out and I couldn't hear the board engineer.

I'm eager to see what fresh hell tomorrow has in store.

Meanwhile -- the radio show will be moving to a three-hour Saturday night block (7:00-10:00 Mountain) this weekend. And the YouTube channel is under construction.

Anonymous said...

William ~ You need to get yourself & your family several bottles of Vitamin D3 at 2,000 IU's per gel cap.

Take at least 6 of these a day when you feel ok. Take 6 of these 2 or 3 times a day when you start to feel something coming on.

They tell us we need only 400 IU's a day, but 20 minutes of sunlight on our bare skin produces 20,000 IU's. Darker skinned individuals need more sunlight in order to have sufficient levels of Vitamin D3 to properly support the immune system.

Be sure to get the D3. It is very affordable.

D2 is the synthetic form.

D. Reid Smith said...

Will, I was just talking to my wife this morning saying, "every time Will is gone he comes back and says, 'no the black helicopters didn't come for me,' but now that it's been a week I'm starting to get nervous!"

Glad to see you're still [relatively speaking] free. Heal fast; we need you.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Will,

Sorry to hear of your illness. I had the same experience a while back. Funny thing, the doctors of America charge $200+ for an office visit - to everybody. The insurance companies say, shove your bill up your nose, (or other anatomical orifices,) we will only pay you $63, and the doctors say, "All right". But you and me, they will hound us to the grave and beyond to pay up the full $200. Who cares that we are bankrupt or unemployed? It's the old stickup line: Your money or your life.

Did you know the US is about 38th in the world in life expectancy? Even though we are about 2nd or 3rd in per capita medical spending? And about 38th or 39th in infant mortality? Even Cuba - Cuba! - scores well above the USA in both statistics.

RE. Your article: The Leviathan state is another stickup operation. When was the last time you spoke to your Congressman or one of your Senators? Unless you come bearing fat wads of cash, the best you will do is speak on the phone with some bespectacled flunky in your representative's office who moonlights as the office janitor. Our 535 representatives in Washington do not hear what the people say - they only hear what the fat corporations and rich classes tell them, plus the bull-crap their staff filters out from the rest of We The Peasants.

It gets even worse when you get to the level of the President. Here is one man - one man! - tasked with administering an empire of 300 million citizens with a military larger than the rest of the world combined, troops stationed in 135 countries, scores of official agencies employing millions of people, and a collapsing economy and millions of unemployed taxables - naked sheep with no wool for shearing - who normally provide the financial means for Leviathan's exercise of power.

He no longer hears what we say, understands what we think, or knows what we do. He gets all his news and knowledge of the world filtered through the mass of people around him, none of whom is an average citizen on the dole, but all of whom have fat secure Washington jobs and vested interests in securing and funding their own lavish lifestyles.

What do you expect? Of course he is out of touch. They all are. Everyone in Washington. They all live in a cocoon, a bubble, a fantasyland of Oz with an emerald palace and a yellow brick road. None of it is real. None of it is relevant to you or me. None of it is normal and healthy. It is inhuman, corrupt, self-serving, greedy, cruel, vicious, evil, banal, disgusting, abominable, and vile.

Not going to change either.

At least until all the corporations go bankrupt and the mobs take to the streets and the military establishment assumes control. (And don't run that idea down - consider whether it could be any worse than what we have now - rape and plunder by the oligarchs and corporations via their servants in Washington who hold us in a vise-grip of evil power enforced by the threat of sudden death.)

We might as well stop complaining. Unless, like the Founders, we are willing to lay our property, our livelihoods, and our lives on the line, nothing will change. Nothing. Ever.

There comes a point in every aggregation of power in history into the hands of a ruling class, where this power can only be amended by forcible application of a greater power, from within or from without.

Apollonian's plaintive cry for "honest elections and death to the Fed" is a wishful dream. Not gonna happen.

Lemuel Gulliver.

Fascist Nation said...

Pretty much David Stone is verbally advocating the killing of as many government workers as he can get his sights on.

Kristopher Stikles indicted on a single, short sentence?

But the rest? Is it now a crime to NOT disagree with someone who threatens to kill police and other government oaficials? Does thir silence constitute conspiracy?

Is it now a crime to NOT report someone who threatens to kill police and other government oaficials?

No wonder a judge said let them go.