All my rowdy friends (are getting busted)
A small group of my DC libertarian friends decided to hang out at the Jefferson Memorial at midnight to celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. As the story goes, they were listening to iPods and iPhones and silently dancing around midnight. This YouTube shows what happens next:
For a while, they kept the name of the person arrested quiet, but now it’s all over the blogs and news. Here’s one report from Ray Lehmann:
“The hope is still that the D.C. Attorney General will drop the incredibly specious charges against Brooke (aka “Mary” Oberwetter, aka the Jefferson 1) and we’re doing our best to raise enough attention and embarrass the hell out of the department that they’ll do just that. The case has drawn attention of the Washington Post, hundreds of blogs, I wrote about it in the American Spectator, and it’s even received attention from as far away as Germany, with a piece in Der Spiegel magazine. “
Here’s my friend Jason Talley talking to the local news:
A final appeal from Lehmann:
But in the meantime, since we don’t know if the charges will be dropped, and Brooke still faces an April 29 appearance on the charge of “interfering with an agency function,” attorneys have to be hired. Those cost money. So we’ve set up a little defense fund to try to help with the costs. If you were moved by her story, and want to help, please visit [here].
In closing, here are some important words from the Free the Jefferson 1 website:
When in the Course of dancing Events, it becomes necessary for a group of people to question the tactics and authority of others, and to assume among the Powers of the Interwebs, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and the Constitution entitle them, a decent respect to the First Amendment requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to Action.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the ability to quietly listen to 80s hip-hop in the Jefferson Memorial—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Governed—yeah that’s right, we said BY THE GOVERNED—that whenever any agent of the Government becomes obstructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to get all kinds of pissed off. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Laws long established (read First Amendment) should not be ignored for light and transient Causes; and that “bopping” silently to Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock is one of lightest and most transient of causes we’ve ever heard of.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
that is not rowdy! IF you would have got drunk before going to the memorial then that is rowdy.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
hahaha. wow. land of the free, home of the brave.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Obviously I hope the charges will be dropped soon. Fortunately, help is on the way, with the Libertarian Socialist Revolutionary movement of Barack Obama.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Great, now I’m all worked up. I hate these sorts of incidents; they get to me more than stories of larger rights violations because it just shows how entrenched the “I have a badge” mentality is. Arguably there was a rule violation, but this could have been handled so much better if the police chose to converse rather than confront. If the officer had just tried to engage the dancers reasonably, maybe it would have been a learning experience.
I also love the part on the post-arrest video where an officer uses an obscenity, and then when one of the dancers quotes it back to him, the officer tells him not to swear.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Why didn’t they bring up that they are libertarians?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:45 am
because they want to be sympathetic characters.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:16 am
It’s ironic, these protestors are from the conservative group BureauCrash. I’m not seeing that noted anywheres in the coverage including on the Blogs.
The world has turned upside down. Now the conservatives are the biggest defenders of free speech, and some of the biggest supporters of human rights (freedom for Iraqis from the oppression of Saddam Hussein, against Chavez, Castro and other assorted dictators), and in favor of the initiative process (while Dem blockers seek to stop signature gatherers).
And the liberal Democrats have become the Fascists.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:08 am
One of the sad things is, they weren’t even trying to be protestors. They were not setting out to make some point about freedom; they just wanted to enjoy it. Because they did so in a slightly unorthodox way, they were seen as a threat.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I posted a rant the other day, and man this just proves that…
April 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
...Maryland & the District just plain suck ass. Crooked asshole cops, gun bans, tax payer funded stadiums, that guy that smoked crack while getting a BJ from a ‘K’ street hooker…what was his name , oh yeah, Marion Barry…(Went to the penn, got out, was re-elected over & over again….what a fucking disgrace to have the Mayor of the nations capitol embarrass the shit outta the citizens of this country.)
“Maryland needs to end one-party rule, open up its democracy, remove prejudice against alternative parties and allow more participation and new ideas.”
No, Maryland needs a fucking enema.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:32 am
This is rather disturbing. If I wasn’t stone assed broke right now, I’d contribute to that defense fund. Unlike some others here, I hope the charges don’t get dropped, but rather get beaten in court. If we were to focus on getting good lawyers for the “Jefferson 1,” we could turn this into a publicity stunt for Liberty. Dropping the charges would probably result in less attention being paid to this outrage. A way for the D.C. police to dodge the issue of whether they overstepped their bounds or not. Which they did, by the way.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
It is laughable that Eric finally criticize such action and then blame it on liberal Democrats. No, Eric, blame the Bush administration, the Patriot Act, military commissions act and other laws and big government and the loss of civil liberties as the cause for such police behavior.
To those that think Obama would be the solution: he voted for the funding of the war, for the Patriot and other acts and he is especially for big government socialist type and you will see the same sort of action under him.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Is anyone even surprised anymore? Dondero, maybe there’s not a particular party to blame. Maybe it’s the police state, or the military industrial complex, or the simple fact that people with egos have power. Maybe I can bump it back to you, and bring up the neo-cons. Remember them? Been in power for the last 8 years? Look pretty conservative to me. Pick a side, Dondero. Republican or Libertarian. You sound like a friggin’ Republican shock-jock sometimes.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Dondero,
BureauCrash is a libertarian organization that is operated by the CEI, Competitive Enterprise Institute. They teach Austrian economics, far from what the GOP is teaching. Also, last I checked, they were against the war and imperialism, but I don’t know them too well so I could be wrong. I didn’t think there could be imperialist libertarians or socialist libertarians but I guess I was wrong.