It's been a little while since we last checked in on Adam Kokesh, the Second Amendment Gandhi who planned, then cancelled, a Big Open Carry March last July 4th in Washington DC. The idea back then was to end tyranny -- there's always tyranny, and it just never manages to end -- by getting a thousand or so morons with guns to proudly march from Virginia into the no-open-carry hellhole of Washington, where presumably the local authorities would try to take their guns, and then they'd just see who ended up with cold dead fingers. For some reason, it never came together. But Kokesh kept on talkin' bout a revolution, and got himself a podcast -- just as there is tyranny everywhere, there are wingnut podcasts everywhere -- where he talks a lot about the need to do some revolution. And apparently, among his admirers were Jerad and Amanda Miller, the cop-killing Las Vegas revolution-doers, according to the Sothern Poverty Law Center, which listed Kokesh as just one of the many wingnut revolution-sellers that the Millers were fond of citing.
WELL! Adam Kokesh is not gonna take the blame for the Vegas shootings, and to make sure his name gets mentioned a lot (and yes, we're doing exactly that), he made a video to explain that the real source of violence in the system is cops, who need to get shot. Poor guy preaches "universal nonviolence" and he gets blamed for murders, is that even fair?
In the video, Kokesh explains that the problem isn't that the Millers had a "homicidal rage against authority," as USA Today put it, but that "in America, authority has become a homicidal institution against freedom,” and so really, America Made Them Do It. Besides, says Kokesh, the pair were clearly deranged, because they left both a Gadsden flag and a swastika on the bodies of the cops they killed, and there is no connection between the Gadsden flag, which stands for the American Revolution and freedom, and a swastika, which stands for "National Socialism...you know, like...socialized medicine and welfare, and a lot of the Obama administration policies." This guy know his history, for sure!
Kokesh also doesn't think that it's fair to call what the Millers did "murder," because come on, they only killed cops (and later, someone who got in their way):
Let’s say someone is going around stabbing people, like just stabbing people ... It’s not murder to kill someone in that situation. And has been pointed out about the Vegas shooting, when you have police officers that are going around and doing violent things all day long, and then they take a break for lunch, well, it doesn’t mean all of the sudden they’re innocent or they’re being peaceful because they’re taking a break from all of their other dangerous, anti-freedom, rights-violating violence.
See? It is just logic, people. Besides, Kokesh is mostly in favor of nonviolent revolution. Except when cops need to be killed during their lunch breaks. Plus, poor Jerad recognized how oppressed he was by cops and the government, so he was driven to it. "How about thinking in those terms, how about listening and understanding what the bigger problem is?" You see, Adam Kokesh is a big-picture kind of guy. Sure, some cops died. But those are little deaths, nothing compared to the murder of Freedom, man. (Dennis Hopper, why did you leave us before you could play Adam Kokesh in a movie?)
Kokesh even manages to feel a little bad for the widow of one of the slain officers, which he allows is a "tragedy," but (you knew there was a "but" coming), but really,
there's no such thing as a good cop ... Why am I supposed to cry for this? Yeah, children growing up without a dad, but the fact that it's even being presented that way really kind of misses the point! Now think of this: you are now, according to the government, eight! times! more! likely! to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist ...
Think of how many lives might have been saved by this incident. How many people would these cops have killed had they not been killed? How many lives ruined by the legal system might not be ruined now as a result? We can only hope that some of the officers in America are listening -- if you care about your own safety -- to understand that you are hurting people, and you can only push them so far before they hit a breaking point, and that's what happened here.
The perfectly well-adjusted nonviolent advocate of killing cops because they are all killers then explained that all this talk of Jerad and Amanda Miller being violent killers was “kind of like blaming the victim,” because he literally has no idea of what words mean and how they function.
And then he launches into a long denunciation of the SPLC, which is really a dangerous bunch of radicals that's in league with the government and its plan to destroy freedom. He kind of hopes maybe he can sue the SPLC and USA Today, too, since they libelously say that Miller cited Kokesh. It gets all rambly, frankly, and it's all just freedom vs collectivism arglebargle. Frankly, he seems a bit petulant that the SPLC hasn't hated him quite enough, because he's fuckin' Gandhi. Though there is a nice bit where he questions the death toll in the shooting as "5 people," because after all, two of them were merely cops.
Here's the video for those of you with strong stomachs!
Kokesh also has a brand new video that explains how you can kill cops and still insist that you're part of a "non-violent" movement. We may watch it later, but for now, we think we've had enough Kokesh to last us a while.
[ YouTube and SPLC via RawStory ]
Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He actually has a surprising tolerance for this shit.
Persuasion?
Pretty sure his personality is repellent enough the gun would strictly be an afterthought.