4um: Again The So-Called Libertarians Get It Wrong

Title: Again The So-Called Libertarians Get It Wrong
Source: Market Ticker
URL Source: http://market-ticker.org/
Published: May 8, 2013
Author: Karl Denninger
Post Date: 2013-05-08 20:29:01 by Southern Style
Keywords: None
Views: 254
Comments: 20

Again The So-Called Libertarians Get It Wrong

Will the man with a pair of balls please step forward?

In response to libertarian activist Adam Kokesh's planned July 4 march in which the participants will supposedly be carrying loaded rifles—in blatant violation of D.C.'s tough gun laws—another activist says he's putting together a better, and more acceptable, event for the day before.
Austin Petersen, a video producer for the libertarian organization FreedomWorks, says that Kokesh's designs of crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge ahead of a pack of gun-toting Second Amendment believers is a provocative discredit to the cause.

Provocative? You bet. So was refusing to sit in the back of the bus. So was insisting on being seated and served in a diner. So was marching down a street with a few hundred -- or thousand -- black people after being told "you're not welcome here."

All of which, incidentally, were "unlawful" acts -- despite those laws being blatantly unconstitutional.

But because he's still an ardent opponent of gun control laws like D.C.'s, Petersen still wants to send a pro-firearm message around the Independence Day holiday. A legal one, that is.

He intends to send a pro-firearms message? Cool -- let's hear about it.

So, on July 3, Petersen wants to head up a parade of libertarians and maybe their families hosting toy guns, like water pistols and Nerf blasters. The "Armed Toy Gun March on D.C." will follow the same route around the monuments and National Mall as Kokesh lays out for his march the day later, but the only "weapons" will be tiny water jets and foam darts.

Uh huh. This sends a message of disagreement with the blatantly unconstitutional DC gun laws?

Exactly how? Water guns and nerf pistols are neither constitutionally protected or prohibited, nor do they have anything to do with firearms. They're both toys where firearms are tools.

But like so many so-called "libertarians" (of which I've written on many) Petersen's plans fail the first test of logic -- that is, consistency that can be traced to the first principles expressed in The Declaration of Independence.

You might fit water guns and nerf pistols into "pursuit of happiness" through some bit of mental masturbation but you sure can't find a connection to life or liberty in either.

"If we want less war, we need to be less warlike ourselves," Petersen says. "The idea of libertarianism is personal responsibility. If you can't act responsibly, then you can't own a gun. We can still have fun and not be negative and confrontational."

Um, me thinks you need to do a bit more reading before trying to tell people what libertarian and personal responsibility entails.

Specifically your personal responsibility to stop someone, should you so choose, who intends to initiate force against you for the purpose of depriving you of your life.

Exactly how do you intend to discharge that personal responsibility with a water pistol?

Then there's this piece of idiocy:

"Are you going to act like Martin Luther King or are you going to act like Malcolm X?" Petersen says, noting that Kokesh's website is filled with references to the former, along with other peace advocates like Mahatma Ghandi. "Who got more done? I'm challenging the libertarian movement. If you really believe in the principles of Dr. King, come to this event and live out his principles, because he was the one who advocated nonviolence just like libertarians do."

Ok, Peterson has just outed himself as historically ignorant along with not believing in personal responsibility.

Malcolm X advocated violence. Kokesh has not, to the best of my knowlege.

But more to the point Martin Luther King was arrested some 30-odd times for protests that had no official permission and in fact he led marches, expressing his First Amendment Rights, knowing full well that the government had banned his proposed activity in advance exactly as the DC Police have informed Kokesh!

More than once MLK was beaten and otherwise abused while in jail too.

There is nothing "warlike" about carrying a firearm. Your actions only become "warlike" when you unholster or shoulder said weapon for the purpose of initiating force.

Up until that point your keeping and bearing of arms are in fact the epitome of peace, in that the very fact that you are armed and everyone knows it serves as a strong deterrent against any criminal element who might otherwise choose to initiate force against you, whether said criminals are individuals or part of some organization.

The entire point of the Second Amendment is that so long as it remains as written the odds of it ever needing to be used for the purpose it was inserted into the Constitution remain vanishingly small.

The Second Amendment is, in fact, is the guarantee of civil peace.

Write off one jackass named "Petersen."

Kokesh had better screen the men in that march damn well before allowing them to participate. One or two plants in the crowd popping off a few rounds would invite a tremendously negative response.

Should this march actually occur, I would hope that those in government would exercise extreme caution in doing anything provocative. The general public is quickly getting wise to the government's tricks and now, would not be an especially good time for them to employ provocateur tactics.

Personally, I agree with what Kokesh is advocating. I find his approach far preferable to waiting at home for DHS, ATF, or some other government entity to bust down the door, rush in with automatic weapons and subject my family, and myself, to various indignities while ransacking the house to steal our weapons.

Perhaps this can serve to spark, educationally wise, Americans into waking up to the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves. Namely, that we have no rights. At its' best, we have government controlled privileges, which makes us little more than modern day "house niggers".

I'm not sure what Kokesh is actually advocating this time or that even he really agrees with it as a 2nd Amendment issue of principle or protest because, starting at the 1:47 mark of this Apr 30, 2012 video, he said (much like an Anarchist rather than a Constitutional guard):

Yes, our right to bear arms preceeds the Constitution as a natural right but is that his point of call for the march? I don't know but advocating the Articles of Confederation over the Constitution as he did is advocation of an even more centralized framework of government at the top level. Maybe he's confused about that or has changed his views since then. I don't know where he's moved or not lately regarding his bearings on the Constitution but his defection-like spin away from it didn't resonate well with me:

I have a kitchen-aid bottle opener, I try to keep it from getting scuffed-up, it's really pretty.