William Kostric is a Patriot!

by Dave C. Jones

San Diego, CA - 12 August 2009 @ 2130 PDT - William Kostric, openly wearing a gun in a holster and hoisting a sign saying "It is time to water the tree of liberty," appeared outside the New Hampshire town hall meeting where President Obama spoke yesterday. His sign and his gun drew a lot of ire from the liberal media and some attention from the police.

For instance, Chris Matthews of MSNBC wanted to know why Kostric brought a "God-damned gun" to a presidential event. Upon hearing that a man had a gun at the event, Carlos Watson (also of liberal MSNBC fame) called for the police to disarm Kostric. In true liberal fashion, Watson simply could not believe that someone could carry a gun and bepeaceable.

Additionally, MSNBC reported that the Secret Service told Kostric he could be arrested for being within 1000 feet of a school with the gun if he left private property (he was on church grounds). Unfortunately, the so-called "Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990" was overturned in U.S. v Lopez (1995) 514 U.S. 549 as an overreaching of the federal government's Commerce Clause powers. In 1996, Congress reenacted a more narrowly drawn version (18 USC section 44, subsection (q)(2)(B)) but Kostric did not violate that law because he was on private property and may even have had a permit to carry the gun in New Hampshire (which would have allowed him to leave the church grounds with the gun).

William Kostric is a patriot. He went out to the town hall meeting, peaceably demonstrated, and exercised his second amendment rights at the same time. My only gripe about the whole incident (aside from it probably leading to more gun control) is that he had to carry openly and stay on private property. There is absolutely NO reason he should be restrained in how or where he carries a gun. I don't care if the president had been touching Kostric at the time and Kostric had been yelling that he hoped the president died (which is not a threat, by the way). Simply exercising two of his rights—his right to bear arms and his right to free speech—at the same time (God forbid!) should not give the government any say in whether an American carries a gun.

Kostric is also a patriot for putting himself up to the public scrutiny that is normally reserved only for candidates for public office. As I mentioned yesterday, when the media and political opponents disagree with your viewpoint and when they view you as a threat to their goals, they smear you to eliminate you. Kostric is a perfect example of that leftist tactic.

Salon.com reports that Kostric:

• Is a "team member" of the Arizona chapter of We the People, "the far-right group best known for joining a lawsuit challenging Obama's right to be president based on his not being a U.S. citizen";
  


• Has a MySpace page that lists his "heroes" as:


• Robert Schultz, "the anti-tax activist and We the People founder who spent a ton of his own money on ads promoting the Birther movement";


• Randy Weaver, "the white supremacist and right-wing activist who survived the Ruby Ridge confrontation with federal agents";


• Ayn Rand's John Galt;


• Thomas Jefferson;


• Libertarian/GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul; and


• William Wallace, the Scottish resistance leader portrayed in Mel Gibson's "Braveheart."


• Is MySpace "friends" with "the Free State Project, a group organizing libertarians to move to New Hampshire and expand on the state's "Live Free or Die" credo, and ultimately secede from the union";


• Signed "two pledges at PledgeBank, a site that lets people organize around various causes." Kostric's two pledges include:


• "[M]ove to New Hampshire by 12/31/2008 where I will work to bring about a society in which government’s maximum role is protecting life, liberty, and property"—the credo of Free State Project members; and


• "[R]efuse to accept a national ID card," a cause among many far-right libertarians.
  

Whew! With a resume like that, no wonder the liberals are worried about this guy!

Come on! Seriously? The media vilifies this guy for:

• Wanting proof that the president is Constitutionally eligible to serve as president;


• Not liking taxes (remember the original Boston Tea Party?);


• Siding with a guy who was framed by the Clinton administration and whose entire family and way of life was destroyed by Janet Reno;


• Thinking Atlas should shrug;


• Liking one of our Founding Fathers (that's probably the most damning fact for him);


• Admiring a libertarian;


• Respecting a man who fought for his country's independence;


• Associating with a group that wants to limit the role of government to that specified in the Constitution and for taking an oath to help meet that goal; and


• Refusing to submit to registration of people at the national level.

None of this is extreme unless you are a liberal who despises the original Constitution and its clear meaning. Clearly, the media falls into that category as do Obama, the majority of Democrats in office today, and even a majority of Republicans in office.

It is precisely because too many people across this country believe Kostric is an extremist that I do not think this country will ever again be on the correct track. Unlike Glenn Beck, I do not think the country will wake up and correct its course. We are too far gone. There are too few people left who believe in the America that our Founders created to be able to affect change at the ballot boxes. There is no way that we can regain the original glory of this country without feeding the tree of liberty.

As Kostric's sign alluded, Thomas Jefferson said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." I wish Jefferson was wrong. But, like most everything else Jefferson did and said, he is correct. It is far longer than the 20 years Jefferson predicted would be necessary to maintain freedom. I wish it would be longer still but I just don't think we will ever get back to a state of freedom without heeding Jefferson's words.

We need more patriots like William Kostric—and we need them now.

____________________________

Dave Jones is not your typical liberal California criminal defense trial attorney. He is a libertarian who believes in less government, more guns, and greater freedom–in short, the principles on which this country was founded. He can be reached at his law firm, the American Justice Center, via e-mail at djones at AmericanJusticeCenter.com. Read more of his writings at blog.AmericanJusticeCenter.com.