It's genuinely shocking to realize how much of the American electoral process is less about laws and codified procedures and more about elected officials not being dicks. Think about it: The whole idea of a "peaceful transfer of power" is that the loser isn't a dick about it. What we've learned since the 2020 election is that all it takes to start wrecking the entire system is for the loser to decide, "Yeah, I'm gonna be a dick about it" and move ahead with tearing shit apart. And it seems like there's no law that says, "Whoa, whoa, you can't be a dick even if you want to be one."
But the legal system, you know, the whole Law and Order shit, does have a way to put dicks away so that they can't spread their dickishness far and wide.
Check this out. It's from U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly C. Priest Johnson in her decision to hold Stewart Rhodes, the one-eyed leader of the band of feculent-brained loons and goons known as the Oath Keepers, in jail without bail pending his trial on seditious conspiracy related to the events of January 6, 2021. She writes, "It is not unusual for Americans to be disappointed by election results or offput by the functioning of federal, state, or local governments. Indeed, the right for such individuals to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances is enshrined in the Constitution and is core to American freedom and our system of governance. Here, the Court is not faced with a peaceable assembly and petitioning, as Defendant’s extraordinary actions and the ripple effects that followed are outside the bounds of protected activities." She's talking about the First Amendment here, saying that Rhodes's calling for halting Congress's certification of the election results, including planning to actually do it, isn't protected because that's how you get fucking anarchy.
The First Amendment is not a suicide pact. It's time we stopped treating it like that. There are responsibilities that go along with freedom of speech, assembly, etc. And one of those is not using it to overthrow the government that is protecting your speech, assembly, etc. because you don't like who won the election. It doesn't fucking matter how much you believe an election was actually stolen. Reality isn't negotiable. A guy who tries to burn down his neighbor's house isn't let off because he sincerely believes his neighbor is Satan.
Johnson continues on Rhodes, "The evidence shows Defendant orchestrated a large-scale attack on the federal government with the purpose of intimidating, by violence, federal officials and disrupting official governmental proceedings incident to the transfer of power in the Executive Branch following a national election...Defendant’s authoritative role in the conspiracy, access to substantial weaponry, and ability to finance any future insurrection, combined with his continued advocacy for violence against the federal government, gives rise to a credible threat that Defendant’s release might endanger others by fostering the planning and execution of additional violent events." Now, obviously, Rhodes is a crazed fucknut, armed to the teeth and leading a bunch of other crazed fucknuts. But what about the fucknuts above him when it comes to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and future attempts to overthrow a legally elected government? Like Donald Trump, clearly the fucknut-in-chief?
What Johnson worried that Rhodes would do in fomenting further rebellion is exactly what Trump is doing. His speech in Conroe, Texas (motto: "Conroe: Crazy and Caucasian"), this past weekend was an abject, shameless call to action, promising to pardon the idiot hordes who fight for his delusions of victory. In addition to flat-out committing obstruction of justice, Trump commanded his stormtroopers to be ready: "If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt." Those just happen to be the places where they're investigating his ass. Jesus fuck, he says the intention of his Leni Riefenstahl-ready rallies is to "Save America." From what? Legal elections? In an interview with some fucking bullshit conservative outlet, the only places he's not too much of a little bitch to appear, Trump again asserted that he would pardon the 1/6 criminals. This is not to mention that statement he put out where he said that Vice President Mike Pence "could have overturned the election."
So, yeah, Stewart Rhodes should be kept locked up because of what he might do and what he might say. I would argue it's even more important for the President of the United States or even the former one to not engage in language that might lead to violence as an intended consequence. And if that former president refuses to back down from calling for an organized attack to put him back in power, then he should be fucking jailed, pending trial for seditious conspiracy. Jail him. Silence him. For fuck's sake, this should have been done on 1/6, and it's more imperative than ever.
In Part 2: "Wait, you're fucking serious about this?" Yeah. Yeah, I am.
