September 5, 2012 - 5 facts that will get you put on the No-FlyList for reading.

1.) In 1946, there was an American Revolution

In 1946, the people of Athens, Tennessee, overthrew their local sheriff’s department. Many were
World War II veterans freshly returned from fighting the fascists abroad. There was no prison
sentence handed out to any of the parties involved, and there were no deaths, but several were
wounded. The sheriff had been engaging in massive vote fraud. On the night of the election,
people marched down to the sheriff’s office with their weapons and demanded a public counting
of the ballots as was the law.

The sheriff refused, and a shootout ensued. When the sheriff surrendered, the ballots were
counted in public. Everything returned to normal with a new, elected government, without the
federal or state governments intervening in the local conflict. (1)

This revolution is a superb example of why a standing army should be avoided, the right to bear
arms should be respected, and local political units are always preferable to larger ones. In today’s
anti-terror environment, the President would likely send in the National Guard to put down
the “terrorist uprising,” confiscating everyone’s weapons like the National Guard did during
Katrina (2), and the cronyism in that county of Tennessee would continue. This is why it was
said during the floor debate on the Second Amendment:

“What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane
of liberty.” (3)

2.) Wyoming is in a hostile standoff against the Feds

Wyoming has passed a law stating that any federal agent who enforces any federal law on a
Wyoming firearm is subject to a year in prison. (4) What this means is that, were the federal
government to send in federal agents to enforce a federal firearm law, local cops in Wyoming are
now required to arrest them. The federal agents, of course, would likely try and arrest them back,
which would lead to a very bloody situation.

So far, the federal government has not provoked Wyoming police. It would certainly be a
dramatic turn of events if a US president were to order the shooting, bombing, or droning of
Wyoming police officers. Although the current number of Wyoming police could easily be
defeated by the US Military, it is lawful for sheriffs to round-up a posse, and the majority of the
population in Wyoming are armed. (5) The US Military cannot even defeat the Taliban, who are
a small fraction of the Afghan population.

3.) Throwing bricks led to LGBT rights

In June of 1969, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered (LGBT) people were outlawed in
much of America. Of course, they existed, and when they were caught they were often arrested.
In New York City, the police frequently staged raids on LGBT bars. But one night, they staged a
raid on the popular LGBT bar called the Stonewall Inn, and people for the first time fought back.
A larger crowd from outside gathered bricks. They threw bottles, bricks, and fists, cornering the
police for hours until eventually more police showed up with reinforcements.

The next night the situation was the same, and the night after that. Eventually, a group of LGBT
protesters decided to publicly flaunt their lawbreaking by holding a Gay Pride march in broad
daylight. Up to that point, the LGBT community was too intimidated by social norms and police
action to publically protest, and the march was a catalyst for a wave of protests that eventually
led to the legalization of LGBT people. (6)

In 1969, those people throwing bottles, bricks, and fists at the police were treated by the
government as felons (though the police were only able to arrest a small fraction of them). In
2009, New York City erected a statue to the Stonewall rebels.

A fellow in Vermont was recently arrested for cannabis possession, and after he was released
he decided crush half the police cruisers in his town with his tractor. In 40 years, will that
town erect a statue in his honor? Interestingly, the comments on a USA Today article about the
incident are mostly in support of the farmer. (7)

4.) Four towns in Maine have declared they are sovereign nations

The Maine towns of Sedgwick, Trenton, Penobscot, and Blue Hill have declared their
independence from their county, state, and federal government. Although, it is legally more
correct to say the sovereign nations of Sedgwick, Trenton, Penobscot, and Blue Hill are bordered
by the United States, and they have declared their independence from it. Their citizens voted to
declare absolute sovereignty, and they used valid legal arguments from the US Constitution and
the Maine constitution to do so. (8)

So far, these towns have exercised this sovereignty only on matters of food, and, like in
Wyoming, the federal government has not shot, bombed, or droned the local police (and neither
have the state police or the county sheriff’s department). If the federal government were to
invade these nations, the nations obviously would not be able to win by themselves. Of course,
the populace from the surrounding state of Maine might send reinforcements.

5.) In certain situations, it is legal to kill a police officer

In the case of John Bad Elk v. the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that:

“Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an
attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction,
when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no such
right. What might be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the
other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.” (9)

In John Bad Elk’s case the facts did show that no offense had been committed: He was declared
innocent of the murder of the police officer who was attempting to arrest him, because the
Supreme Court ruled that the officer had no right to arrest him and Elk was acting in self-
defense. Of course, if you feel like you are being wrongfully arrested, and you use lethal force
on a cop, you most certainly will get tried for murder, or at least manslaughter, and you will
likely get convicted. But in certain extreme cases, such as when a woman is being raped by a
cop, a jury would likely be sympathetic if she killed him in self-defense, and the Supreme
Court’s case law sides with her, so she would likely win on appeal even if the jury didn’t side
with her.

The American tradition holds fast to rebelling against authority, but in recent years any physical
rebellion against the state has been demonized to such a degree that those who engage in it
no longer even have the liberty of a guaranteed trial, thanks to the most recent National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA). (10) Any one of the examples above could be labeled “domestic
terrorism,” but conventional history looks kindly upon these rebels. One man’s terrorist is another
man’s freedom fighter, and this is why it is especially important that everyone, no matter the crime,
be afforded a jury trial.

In this chilling era we live in, a young adult who lives a few towns over from me recently went to
prison for decades for translating a video on explosives and posting it on YouTube, an activity
that is legal under the 1st Amendment. (11) This whole ordeal happened before the NDAA
was passed, and if it had happened after, he likely wouldn’t have even gotten a trial before being
hauled off into the night. And who knows, just for writing this article, I might not get a trial either.

(1) http://constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm

(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf8trl69kzo

(3) http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs6.html

(4) http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_c7812604-274d-11df-
bc95-001cc4c03286.html

(5) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html

(6) http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/stonewall_rebellion/index.html
ml

(7) http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-08-03/vermont-farmer-destroys-sheriffs-
cars/56727814/1

(8) http://maine.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/05/trenton-becomes-fourth-town-to-declare-
food-sovereignty/

(9) http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/177/529

(10) http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinunderhill/2011/12/07/you-say-indefinite-military-detention-of-citizens-like-its-a-bad-thing/

(11) http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/the_real_criminals_in_the_tarek_mehanna_case/

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