VIOLENCE

 

Mad Dog had to Google the law which says advocating for the violent overthrow of the government is illegal.

It turns out, it's the Smith Act of 1940, Title 18.

Long before this law, Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes made it illegal to undermine the federal government by decrying the draft for World War 1, in that famous ringing phrase crystalizing the limits of free speech: "You cannot falsely cry 'Fire!' in a crowded theater causing a panic." He said that the printing (in Yiddish of all things!) of a pamphlet decrying the draft and distributing it outside a factory encouraging workers to not support the draft constituted a  "clear and present danger" to the United States of America.

War At Kent State

Holmes, at least when he wrote his opinion, was no friend of free speech.

But we all, or most of us, agree free speech is an ideal with some practical limitations.

Sometimes, however, men decide to ignore laws and to act, to do violent  things and they feel justified in violently  taking life on principle.

As a tool for revolution, for opposing despots, violence is often ineffective, or at best, inefficient. Or as they say now, nobody can out gun the federal government.

My parents always told me: "Don't be a martyr. You can't win from the grave."

And even a source as dubious as General George Patton said, "You don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making that other dumb bastard, your enemy, die for his country."

Martyr

On the other hand, once all other options have been tried without success, sometimes violence has a certain appeal.

There is a famous scene from the movie, "Mississippi Burning," between an FBI agent  and the local sheriff assigned to help him. The Sheriff is the agent's native guide; he has grown up in the South and knows the local folks. When the car belonging to the three Civil Rights workers is hauled out of a local swamp, it's apparent the three have been murdered and the agent orders up 100 police to search the location for the bodies. 

"Don't do that. Don't do it." the sheriff warns the agent. "You'll start a war."

And the agent replies, "There's a war been going on here long before I arrived."

By that time in the movie, we have seen enough of Mississippi to know exactly what he means. It is a loathsome, fifth circle of Hell, populated by mean, ignorant, violent, haters. 

The agent is willing to incite violence to meet violence.

After Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent, even before federal agents murdered Alex Pretti as he tried to protect a woman agents had slammed to the ground, Mad Dog probed some of his local friends and members of the Democratic Club about at least beginning an academic discussion, a thought  experiment, about what the options might be for resistance to the Trump terror.

We might begin with the simple, harmless things, like bringing food to immigrants who are afraid to leave their home, or blowing whistles when ICE shows up on the block or holding up protest signs on the corner. 

When neighbors held up those signs, Mad Dog asked the leader if she had held any exercises about how to react if ICE arrived, the way those Freedom Riders and students who did sit ins at segregated lunch counters were trained in the sixties. She looked a little uncomprehending, and said, "Well, we'd get arrested."

Mad Dog thought, "But that's not training."

Do these folks with the protest signs know what to do when they are arrested? Do they have a plan for arrest? What if they are beaten? Do they have a plan?

When you are trained how to resuscitate someone, you are trained what your first step should be--establish an airway--then, the next--thump the chest--and if that doesn't work--start pumping. And if that doesn't work...And so on, for each failure, what is next.

Okay, you've tried the big marches with the balloons and pink hats with ears. None of that worked: What next?

Martin Luther King argued  with Malcom X about peaceful resistance v Armed revolution. 

Today, we think non violent resistance worked and was the smart choice.

But Mad Dog has always wondered: What if Gandhi had been protesting against Hitler? We'd never have heard of Gandhi, or at most, he'd have lasted a single news cycle. If Gandhi had faced ICE rather than the British colonial officers, he'd have been dead within the first week he'd tried his Salt march to the sea.

Non violent protests only works against authorities who won't shoot you within seconds of arriving on the scene.

Watching Alex Pretti taking each step toward his own death, you could see he had a limited plan: video the ICE agents, back off as they approached him. 

But then one of them slammed a woman to the ground near him and he had not planned or been trained for that moment and he dived in and died.

His death will not change anything any more than the death of that student in the famous photo from Kent State.  That martyred student at Kent State did not end the war in Vietnam. The violent Tet Offensive ended the war in Vietnam. 

So, maybe we'll talk some more about what we'll do, how far we'd be willing to go when ICE comes to Hampton.

And you have to walk it all the way through to the violence.

Do we organize a militia? We have  guns in town. This is open carry New Hampshire.  

Do we have a dozen men show up with their assault rifles shouldered? 

What do we do when ICE calls in more troops with their assault rifles?

Do we level our rifles at them?

Do we shoot?

The Minutemen may or may not have had a plan at Lexington and Concord, but they actually wrecked havoc on the British and made them retreat.

But what happened then? 

Do we want to engage in a full out fire fight in Hampton?

And you cannot out gun the federal government.

And if we did try, would that not play into the hands of the Trump/Miller/Noem/Bovini hands? 

Oh, look, see! We told you they were dangerous, murdering leftists!

Or are we already past that? 

Has the war already begun, as in Mississippi?

18 U.S. Code § 2385 - Advocating overthrow of Government

• U.S. Code
• Notes

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Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

Predictable? Inevitable: The Plan All Along

 

Ken White, a lawyer whose podcast "Make No Law" was a wonderful exploration of the United States Constitution,  now has a new podcast, "Serious Trouble," and he has posted a list of "arguably predictable consequences," which foment violence from the government toward the people they govern/oppress.

ICE Agents Fearing for Their Lives

My only argument is with his word, "arguably." 

A Confused Narrative

These consequences are inevitable. They are a step by step recipe for what any tyranny cooks up. 

Government at Kent State

"We the People," become  dupes and neutered witnesses as the dogs of tyranny are unleashed. 

Government at Selma

Try reading this and not thinking of Steven Miller, Pete Hegseth, Krisit Noem and Trump. It reads like a playbook, and not just Project 2025 but Mein Kampf, or at least Joseph Goebbels diary entries. 

This is a plan, not just something that happened.

A Recipe for Violence

Members of groups hated by the ruling party and its supporters — including racial and religious groups, immigrants, and dissenters or critics — can be assaulted and even murdered with practical impunity, both by government actors and by private individuals favored by the ruling party. The ruling party can lie to justify said assaults and murders and no reliable institution can call the lies to account. The ruling party can expand the hated group without rights at will. The constitutional and statutory rights of the hated groups can be violated at will. Anyone objecting can be punished by violence or by abuse of government power. The populace is increasingly confused and uninformed because the institutions that should inform them are unable or unwilling to do so in a coherent manner. If any of this sounds  familiar, well then you have been paying attention. But if you pay attention to all this chaos, maybe you'll forget about Jeffrey Epstein.  From Predictable to Inevitable

MAGA REVEAL ON THE 2ND AMENDMENT

 

Another terrorist, worst of the worst, paid protester, Somali loving, likely rapist has been bravely dispatched by ICE, where, Trump/Noem/Bovino/Miller (can never keep these mopes straight) tell us he threatened federal agents with a gun, and fearing for their lives...you know the rest.

Noem with Photo of gun
ICE said It took from Nurse
Doesn't look like gun we see from video

And if you are confused on any of that, it's you who are confused, because it is very clear what happened, but let me repeat it: An armed rapist, immigrant like, leftist terrorist was heroically killed by ICE or Border Control or someone from Homeland Security (a name which beggars irony--as if these Federal killers are providing security for anyone, even White mothers). Got it now? If we keep saying it, it must be true.

He was, apparently shot over 10 times because he had committed the crime of carrying a licensed firearm and he was at the site of a demonstration where people were trying to exercise their First Amendment rights, (and don't they deserve to be shot for THAT?) and, apparently getting those violated, along with their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. 

Or at least that's how Trump/Noem/Hegseth/Miller have explained it.

Federal Agents 
Bravely Sudue
One Nurse

Federal agent removes Victim's gun
Before another shoots nasty terrorist
10 times as he lies on Ground

Well, actually, an ICU nurse, at the VA, who was holding a phone, while his licensed side arm was swept away by ICE/Border Control/Masked Raiders in preparation for his execution.

And, if you look at the photo above, that gun being held by the Fed does not look anything like the Howitzer Noem shows in the photo of the nurse's gun, which has what may be a laser sight attached. So, as she has virtually every time, Noem is lying, telling you to not believe what you can see with your own eyes.

Another Dangerous Rapist/
Murderer/
Leftist Mercenary

But he was ARMED! With a gun! What was he doing with a gun? What did he intend to do? THAT is the question! WHY did he bring a gun?

Here in New Hampshire, which is an open carry state, men pack heat on their hips or rifles on their backs to attend rallies, and especially Obama rallies, where all sorts of white males looking as if they were about to jump out of airplanes with the 101st Airborne show up to "listen" to Obama speak at Portsmouth High School, and if their weaponry spooked some Obama supporters, well, we do have the 2nd Amendment.

And, oh, about that 2nd Amendment, which begins, "A well organized militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State," well, what if the governor of the state, to restore order and safety, calls out the Minnesota National Guard to protect his citizens from ICE and then, what if Steven Miller and Secretary Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth respond with Marines or deployment of the 101st airborne?

(Remember when the 101st was deployed in Little Rock, Arkansas to walk a little Black girl to school through a howling White mob? Boy, talk about a different sort of assignment.)

Invaders

So, if the Minnesota Guard were deployed to protect Minnesotans--imagine using the Guard to do something like that, rather than just piling up sandbags--Well, that's called Civil War, which, of course, is what MAGA has been calling for since January 6, 2021.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

And this time, nothing new, it would be White people going to war to control non White people, poor White people, in service of rich, white plantation (Mar-a-lago, Epstein's Island) owners. 

Don't they Look Like
They're Having Fun?

Where the Executioner's Face is Always Well Hidden

 

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

--Bob Dylan

Another ICE execution today by Trump's MAGA men in Minnesota, where masked men carry out the Mad King's orders to restore order by murder. Or, as they call it: self defense in fear of their lives. These ICE agents are terrified. And they're the ones with the guns. So far. 

Maybe this time someone else had a gun. Maybe he had the right to carry that gun. The Second Amendment applies even in Minnesota. Not much is known, at the moment, except that Trump and Noem will say the ICE agents did the right thing.

Wimps Always Well Hidden

It's possible ICE shot in self defense, but given what we have seen and given what Trump, Bovino, Noem, J.D. Vance have said about the protestors who they always say are the worst of the worst criminals, rapists and murderers--like the mother of three Renee Good--the default, until we know more, is to think, "Oh, this is just another example of enforcement = execution."

Farhenheit 10 

Even if the man was armed, that doesn't mean he used his gun to threaten an ICE agent. And, as the Guardian newspaper reminded us, “Treat the US government and ICE claims like you’d treat a Russian government claim after they’ve shot down an airliner or bombed a hospital,” Higgins wrote. “America 2026.”

There is a difference between what is legal and what the public may think is just, and in the case of Trump, who has ordered ICE to ignore the need for a warrant to search a home, the idea of legal no longer has any real meaning.

A man named Bernard Goetz shot four Black teenagers in a New York City subway in December, 1982. This happened at a time when robberies and beatings were happening frequently on the subways, which is a vast system running 24/7/365.  

One of the teenagers demanded $5 from Goetz, who could have got up and moved to another subway car, but instead drew out a Smith and Wesson pistol and shot his interlocuter and his three friends. One was hit in the head, survived, but was paralyzed. None died.

In May, 1983, a woman was gang raped and one of the gang was one of the teenagers Goetz had shot five months earlier.

When Goetz was tried in 1985 for shooting the four, he was found innocent of attempted murder on the grounds of self defense. The subsequent actions of one of the crew he had attacked--the gang rapist--weighed heavily in the court of public opinion and, apparently with the jury.

This was a case where a judgment on the nature of the people involved counted more than the details of the assault or the definition of self defense, which might have required that the shooter first  try to retreat and avoid confrontation. 

But the prevailing opinion in the city at that time is these teenagers got what they deserved, given the kind of people they are.

In 2021, the same logic is used by ICE agents and all those who sail with them: they are serving out justice in the form of executions. Or we might apply it to the ICE agents: they are just like the teenagers, ganging up on a prey they've separated from the herd and going in for the kill.

Terrorist Mother Threat to Badass ICE

Today, at the corner across from the Old Salt in downtown Hampton, 20 people stood holding signs: "NO ICE" and "ENFORCEMENT NOW MEANS EXECUTION," and "STAND WITH MINNESOTA."

It was minus one degree this morning in Hampton, but it warmed up 19 degrees by noon and the sign holding.  

Sign Holders in Hampton

One of the sign holders walked down to Blue Harbor coffee shop and bought a quart of coffee and a quart of hot chocolate for the crew standing out there on the corner. When he went to swipe his credit card the girl behind the counter, maybe 17 years old, asked him who the coffee was for. 

"The crazy old folks out there down the block, holding signs."

"No charge," the girl said, placing her hand over the credit card machine. 

"That's a pretty big order," the man told her.

"Your money's no good here. The owner told us."

"You know," the man said, "This makes you part of the resistance now."

The girl smiled. "Yeah, I know."

Resistance 

Robot Tango Tangle: Baiting the Bot

 

Mad Dog has no fear about dementia diminishing his capacity to communicate with his friends and relatives: He's got AI on his side.

Something Siggy said caught Mad Dog's eye: AI has been reading his emails.

Recently, AI has been reading Mad Dog's emails (probably has been for some time longer than he realized) and summarizing what was said:

"Laura commented that your recent blog sounded a bit harsh and may have hurt Anonymous' feelings."

But, then, best of all, it suggested a response:

"I did not realize that. Thanks for the advice. I'll try to do better next time."

So, there you have it, Mad Dog's own brain has really not got to perceive, interpret, integrate or even formulate a response. He can just sit outside the conversation and let AI go back and forth with Laura for him, while he goes out for a cappuccino.  When he gets back, Mad Dog might text Laura, because...well, why should he actually speak to her on the phone in person?

HAL from Urbana

Actually, when you think about it, there was probably a time when people decried the whole notion that speaking to someone on the phone could be "in person" because, after all, it was not really in person, i.e., face to face.

Decommissioning HAL

But that's another discussion.

Anyway, this all came to mind as Mad Dog read Siggy's responses to Anonymous, which is, pretty clearly now, an AI Bot which picks up key words, runs it through its algorithms and responds with other, matched key words. So, the mention of "Minneapolis" evokes a stream of ICE and crime and corrupt official related words and phrases among which "leftist" and "elitist" and "criminal aliens" always seems to surface. But then, occasionally, there are spin offs which go right down a rabbit hole and a blog post  about climate change somehow gets a BOT response about Hamas, September 7, child trafficking and pedophilia. 

Mar-a-Lago

Intriguingly, no mention of "Epstein" ever seems to provoke a screed about pedophilia, Trump, or at least it has never done until now.

Mad Dog is not sufficiently conversant in the technology of AI to really know, but Siggy seems to be now just throwing out what might be described as "algorithm bait" to see if he can get the BOT to really launch into outer space.

Of course, even as Mad Dog writes this, he realizes AI BOT ANON is reading it and learning, and may be able to parry the thrusts from Siggy because Mad Dog has helped program him with the observation.

For any fans of Battlestar Galactica, the robots become so like human beings in appearance and thought, it eventually becomes impossible to tell them apart, short of dissecting them in an autopsy room. 

And the echoes of Orwell, "The animals looked from pig to man and from man to pig and they could no longer tell one from another."

Pondering all that, Mad Dog turned to AI for an understanding of what it means to be human, because, well, after all, who else could he turn to?

Professor AI illuminates:

In Battlestar Galactica, the core distinction separating humanoid Cylons (cyborgs) from humans, often highlighted by characters like Caprica-Six, is the absence of true, felt emotion and the inability to comprehend the complexity of human love. While they mimic human form, they are initially defined by their digital, "fuzzy logic" nature, which contrasts with the organic, suffering, and spiritual capacity that characterizes human existence. 

The Confluence

 

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects  against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue , but upon probable cause."

AMENDMENT IV: UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

So the American Constitution is the  reason Americans are not required to carry identification (with exceptions) so we do not have those scenes so often seen in those movies where the Gestapo stops the hero and demands to see, "Your papers." That is always one of the creepiest scenes in any movie. 

But recently, Justice Kavanaugh of the U.S. Supreme Court threw the 4th Amendment out the window.

"Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English... Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States. Importantly, reasonable suspicion means only that immigration officers may briefly stop the individual and inquire about immigration status. If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter."

Justice Kavanaugh, Noem v Vasquez

He was "briefly stopped" for 4 hours

And here is the way Kavanaugh's renunciation of racial profiling played out in Arizona, where  a Brown police lieutenant, Marcus Hayes,  in mufti, stopping for gas after an all night shift is approached and arrested by ICE agents, even after he identifies himself verbally as a police officer.

The agents approach him and demand, "Papers. Now! Immigration check." Just like in those old movies, the Gestapo, all powerful, unbound  by any rules obligating them to show probable cause.

He cannot show them his badge, because it is in his car, but the officers refuse to look there, or to allow him to retrieve or produce it,  and these DEA so-called "agents" refuse to call the police department and one says, after Hayes says he's a police officer, "Sure you are, everyone's got a story."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFOGLGi3CM

What this video shows is how Kavanaugh's opinion plays out in the real  world, on the ground. It's fine for an ICE officer to stop anyone and demand proof of  citizenship, "your papers," and to arrest anyone who does not have those papers on his person, even if the document is only a  few feet away.

Personally, when I go for a walk in Hampton, I am not driving, so I bring no driver's license and in fact I have only my phone and maybe a credit card. Would that mean I should be arrested? For the crime of walking around without a government certificate of belonging?

Do I need to tattoo my driver's license number or my birth certificate number on my forehead? Would that even help?

The other thing which is apparent from this youtube post is how very inept the ICE agents are. We hear a lot of stuff around town: "ICE: stands for Imbecile Certified Error." But these guys, three of them, not to mention the ICE staff at headquarters, are beyond inept--they are clueless. Did it never cross their minds--what if this guy really is a cop?--and then, the next neuron over, and I've just arrested a cop and I'm going to be in deep doodoo.

In fact, Hayes' lawyer refused to settle the suit against ICE and insisted on a jury trial which cost the government nearly $14 million. Not that the ICE agents had to worry. Didn't cost them $14 million.  Nobody was fired. They were just doing what Kristi Noem wants them to do--terrorize, insult, bully, beat down and wreck havoc, the ICE way.

The agents could have simply called the police station while standing there, or they could have taken two steps over to the truck, but they were determined to humiliate this guy, who looks to the viewer as a pretty inoffensive human being, and remarkably controlled, considering.

It's the ICE agents who are the Orcs here. 

Why would that be? Some of have suggested we have scraped the bottom of the barrel when it comes to recruiting ICE  agents. These are losers from every walk of life, too dumb to pass police exams, too intemperate to qualify for local police forces; they are the sort of human refuse that surfaces when Trump calls out from the podium, "I love the undereducated."

What you really want to see is an analysis of who has joined up: Work histories, personal histories, school histories, military histories, criminal records, number who have had restraining orders placed on them for beating their wives or children. Guys who were fired from local police forces. The mopes nobody else wants. 

The United States military services have become high tech enough to require educable serviceman; you can't be stupid and survive long in the military now. Real city police require some knowledge  of the law, the Constitution, and they have to be able to make distinctions. Most city and state police do not want to have to explain to their superiors why they waded into a situation and made it explode, rather than defusing it. 

For most police, the main objective is to keep their beats from going up in flames, to just keep folks moving, nothing to see here.

But ICE agents? What gets them joy from their superiors is the theater, the blowing things up and breaking things. That's the whole point of ICE. Show all those  Brown people in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras it's just a  tempest up here, so don't even think of coming... 

 And Justice Kavanaugh has their back: It's enough to be in a place where there are a lot of illegal immigrants, like, for example the entire state of California.  Or, apparently,  Arizona. It's enough if they have been heard to be speaking Spanish. It's enough to be standing in a Home Depot parking lot, because, you know, that's a known spot for illegal rapists to hang out. So you must be/might be an illegal rapist immigrant. Makes sense! Just common sense, as the justice says.

(Isn't it just rich they call themselves "justices?")

And, it's pretty clear, ICE agents  don't care about the women and children thing--they are just as likely to murder a woman in cold blood, or to scoop up a 5 year old child and put him on a plane from Minneapolis to Texas as they are to take on a real man, who might actually pose them a threat of bodily harm.

Buy One Online $60

They are in states which voted against Trump to sow  terror. They are, ironically enough, the real terrorists.

And if the ICE agent gets caught doing something really heinous, like shooting a woman in the face and then in the head, well he knows everyone from the President on down will just lie about it. She ran him over! The 5 year old kid's father abandoned him in the cold!

So, if you believe that, then I got a great clip from Karoline Leavitt to play you, where she says Trump never confused Greenland with Iceland. You never heard that.

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

The Iceland Cometh

Remember when Joe Biden was simply too demented to be elected President and during his debate with Trump, Trump said, "I don't know what he just said. And I don't think he did either."

Well, listening to Trump's incoherent ramblings at Davos, one had another moment like that, but this has been going on for some time.

This time is was Trump's inability to keep Greenland and Iceland straight, and his bizarre, but completely believable return to Norway not giving him the Nobel prize, and how he won the 2020 election, which surely all those Europeans knew was true and cared so much about and how nobody ever gave America credit for winning World War II, and he sounded like an Agatha Christie character, explaining why she murdered her husband, because he had so wronged her and anyone in her place would have done exactly the same thing.

The difference being, in this case, about 35% of those viewers listening to the confession is nodding along with the culprit, agreeing that she is completely correct and wasn't it a good thing she chopped his head off in the drawing room with the axe? 

So the real twist in this mystery is not that it turned out to be the person you suspected all along, and it was not the characters you thought might have done it--the real twist is that it is the viewer, the reader, the audience, who is the homicidal maniac. 

It's the whole damn MAGA mob.

Like the Murder on the Orient Express--they all buy into the deed.