Yesterday, Adam Kokesh arrived in federal court for a pre-trial hearing as a result of being arrested at his residence in Herndon, VA on July 9, 2013 for performing an act of civil disobedience on July 4, 2013 in Washington, D.C. Kokesh’s case is expected to go to trial on October 24, 2013 and he has been in federal custody since July 26, 2013 as he was denied bail.

Kokesh is a Marine veteran who served in the Iraq war and has been a voluntaryist involved with anti-war activism for many years. Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. In 2010 he ran for U.S. House in New Mexico under the Republican ticket and in 2011 was arrested at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial for dancing.

Kokesh is expected to use his trial to inform the public of their right to nullify laws they find unjust. Jury nullification is a constitutionally protected means for Americans to rid the nation of laws which they may find unfairly deprive Americans of their freedoms when they have hurt no one. A juror sitting on a trial has the ability to effectively veto a law by denying the prosecutor and saying the accused is ‘not guilty’. In the Kokesh case, there was no victim in his actions since no one was harmed in any way. The federal government is choosing to make an example of Kokesh for defying it and wants him to be kept in jail even though he hasn’t hurt anyone. This is clear tyranny by the U.S. government. Ironically his trial will be held on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.

On July 4, 2013, Kokesh carried a loaded firearm in the District of Columbia and posted it on his YouTube channel. Kokesh did not harm anyone while exercising his Second Amendment right under the U.S. Constitution. Kokesh is expected to fight his arrest on constitutional grounds. He posted the following on his website the day before his YouTube post:

“When a government has repeatedly and deliberately failed to follow its own laws, violated the fundamental human rights of its citizens, threatened the sanctity of a free press, created institutions intended to eliminate privacy of communication, waged war at the behest of special interests that threatens the public safety, killed hundreds of children with drone strikes, imprisoned and destroyed the lives of countless individuals for victimless crimes, stifled economic opportunity to maintain the dominance of the financial elite, stolen from the people through an absurd system of taxation and inflation, sold future generations into debt slavery, and abused its power to suppress political opposition, it is unfit to exist and it becomes the duty of the people to alter or abolish that government by whatever means necessary to secure liberty and ensure peace. A new American revolution is long overdue.

We who recognize the illegitimacy of this government will withdraw our material support.
We will take every reasonable measure to avoid the theft of taxation.
We refuse to serve the federal government with our labor.
We reject the authority of the federal government and will resist at every opportunity.
We demand an orderly dissolution of the federal government through secession and reclamation of federally held property.
We will provide aid and comfort to victims of the state.
We will mark Independence Day not with a celebration of collectivism, but with direct action to create freedom.
We will recruit others to this cause and share this pledge.

The time to sit idly by has passed, to remain neutral is to be complicit, just doing your job is not an excuse, and the line in the sand has been drawn between we the people, and the criminals in Washington, DC. While some timid souls will say that it is too early, that we can solve this problem through democratic means provided by government, that current levels of taxation are reasonable for the services provided, and that the crimes of this government are merely a tolerable nuisance; it may already be too late. While there is risk in drastic action, the greater danger lies in allowing this government to continue unchallenged. We will not be silent, we will not obey, we will not allow the government to destroy our humanity: we are The Final American Revolution.”