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."