“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” – Thomas Jefferson
To give a little background on this event, last year a women was arrested while silently dancing at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. She was hardly causing a disturbance as she had her headphones on while quietly listening to her iPod. The courts upheld her arrest by claiming that freedom of expression was not permitted on public memorials because they are designated as solemn places. In other words, this is yet another place where the first amendment does not apply
A grassroots activist in DC was so sickened by this that he decided to spontaneously plan a “Dancing at the TJ Memorial” event on Facebook for Saturday, May 29th. By having a greater number of protestors there, his hopes were that the police sit on their hands and disregard the ridiculous law. Within a few days news about it spread like wildfire, and it was even promoted on liberty shows such as Free Talk Live and Adam Versus the Man. In fact, Adam Kokesh got on board right away as a protestor since he’s now living in DC and by using his national audience he was able to get the word out to many more people through his YouTube videos and TV show on RT TV. He wanted as many people to come out as possible with video cameras, and for those who didn’t want to risk being arrested he encouraged them to dance outside the memorial’s steps to provide moral support for those who were dancing on the inside. At exactly noon, the plan was to have all the protestors there bust out in dancing simultaneously.
The event went down yesterday and resulted in some dismaying results. Six protesters ended up being arrested by thuggish national park officers after doing nothing more than dancing! Adam Kokesh was even caught on camera being body slammed and choked by an officer. Hopefully news about this goes viral to show the world how much of a police state this country has become and how our freedom of expression is continuously being curtailed. If there’s enough public outrage then the public bureaucrats might be forced to rescind this ridiculous law.
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I was amazed that his statue didn’t crumbled during the incident.” – YouTube comment
Update: here’s the first interview with Adam after the incident. He’s doing okay, and the protestors are going to be back next weekend!
Filed under: Civil Liberties, News / Current Events Tagged: | Adam Kokesh, dance party at TJ memorial, dancing protest, Jefferson Memorial, Silent dancing
