Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site frog.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!tdh From: tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Posse Comitatus Message-ID: <267@frog.UUCP> Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 00:10:19 EDT Article-I.D.: frog.267 Posted: Thu Aug 15 00:10:19 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 07:29:58 EDT Reply-To: frog!tdh Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA Lines: 55 > From: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) > Message-ID: <593@mit-vax.UUCP> > These are the farmers, unemployed > manufacturing workers, Vietnam Vets unsuccessfully reintegrated into > American society, bikers who never grew up, prudish and ultimately > dissatisfied mothers, and other marginal types who join KKK, Posse > Comitatus and similar organizations. Their lives are dominated by > disappointment, fear and hatred, > The federal government already identifies Posse Comitatus as a > terrorist organization, and the KKK has been known as one for a long > time. [I don't know whether they enjoy the official designation at > present. Probably not, since they're so fragmented.] As it was explained to me, "posse comitatus" is not an organization, but rather a common law concept that results in temporary organizations. That is allegedly the reason that "posse comitatus" cannot be declared illegal. "Posse comitatus", I was told, is the power of the people to arrest a government official who has been violating the law. (Webster's dictionary does not offer much of an explanation.) The reason that I became curious about it is that when Gordon Kahl (sp?) was murdered, I heard a greatly different story through the grapevine than through the news. But the clincher was WEEI's moronic self-contradictory repetition of the propaganda against the p.c. Kahl had been in (I remember the gist of it; it was hilarious.): The posse comitatus is a neo-nazi extremist organization bent on anarchy. Nazism, a variant of Fascism, an extreme (in the sense that it rarely gets so virulent) form of socialism, is about as opposed to anarchism as you can get. Where the anarchists wrongly oppose the elimination of government, the Nazis wrongly advocated thorough intrusion of government into anything, without limit in principle. And, just as strangely, fascism has been the dominant political force in this country since about the time of Hoover; it hardly is extreme in the sense of relative location on a left-right political spectrum. The story I heard was partly inaccurate, or at least was contradicted by later, more assured information. But it never denied that Kahl was considered a troublemaker, was attacked without warning for it at a roadblock, was not a Nazi, and took a police cruiser in an attempt to escape. I have had some personal experience with bullying police incompetence, and so has an old acquaintance of mine whom I trust, and several others with whom I've spoken. What was transpired to me does not surprise me. But one thing was clear. The news dolts were least to be trusted. David Hudson