Archive for January, 2014

Kelly Thomas

It’s been a few days now since the Kelly Thomas murder case concluded with the jury’s acquittal of the two cops charged.  Their justification for this decision comes down to the following:  the cops were simply doing what they were trained to do.


It is unlikely they were trained to “smash his face to hell” with the end of a Taser as Jay Cicinelli could be heard boasting in the video after the beating.  But more importantly, what kind of fucked up principle is that!?  As long as they are “trained”, beating a mentally disabled homeless man to death is suddenly OK?  Terrorists are trained to kill people – are they justified because of their “training?”  The difference speaks to the state idolatry that had clearly infected the jury:  because the cops were trained by the state, their actions are somehow legitimized.  People usually understand that murder is wrong, but for some reason, when done by a state-sponsored actor it is perceived as OK.  It’s not.


Clearly cops aren’t very intelligent, but this does not mean that they should be treated as mindless drones who are slaves to their programming.  They should be able to understand right from wrong and when they fail to do so, be held accountable.

Beating illustration

To come to their verdict, the jurors would have had to subordinate their own innate knowledge of human decency and morality to the doctrine of the state-uber-alles. I believe that getting people to do this is one of the primary functions of government schools.  Just as military boot camp breaks a person down to then rebuild him as a killer, government schools train students to disregard their own values and instead be obedient servants of the state and to defer unquestioningly to authority.  As long as the murderers were clad in official fashions and wore the appropriate costume jewelry, all is well, nothing to see here.


It’s important for people to understand that the job of a jury is not simply to judge whether or not a particular law was broken or if a government official followed procedure, but also to follow their conscience to  judge whether a particular law or procedure is just.  This is one of the most important ways in which the average citizen can have their voices heard – it is called jury nullification.  This jury failed in their duty.