Brandon Pinney Awaits Trial in a “Fuck Cops” Handmade Shirt
Brandon Pinney is a NH native who is now facing a year in jail for telling state police to fuck off. His is a classic case of being oppressed for freedom of speech. Historically, people arrested for flipping off or telling off police have been vindicated on appeal. It may not be nice to say mean things to cops, but freedom of speech is meant to protect unpopular speech.
Brandon was arrested at Surry Dam when after doing five-miles over the speed limit he was confronted by a forest ranger. We don’t know exactly how their interaction went, because Brandon did not record video. According to Brandon, the ranger berated him about the speeding and Brandon blew him off in an unkind manner. The ranger then said he would be calling the police and Brandon followed him back to his office. The ranger claims Brandon was pounding on the office door yelling at him, while Brandon says he was not pounding on the door and was in no way threatening the man.
However, the ranger’s testimony was that he was frightened and when state police arrived, Brandon told them to fuck off, and when he repeated it at the request of one of the staties, Brandon was arrested.
One note – during trial, Burke said nothing about his shirt, but at sentencing, wearing the same shirt, Brandon was told if he did it again it would be contempt of court. Not only can you not express yourself to police, you can’t express yourself via your wardrobe. Whatever happened to freedom? You generally don’t find it at the district court level.
Once again, the liberty community is divided, this time over the issues about age of consent that have been raised by the recent arrest of state representative Kyle Tasker for allegedly soliciting a 14-year-old teen for sex.
Purported libertarians are on the warpath against those of us who believe teens are humans who can make decisions. The opinions that people in the community seem to hold are one or more of the following:
People under some arbitrary, government-selected age are just children, and cannot consent. Anyone who is attracted to teenagers is a pedophile and deserves to die, go to prison, or be severely beaten.
Kyle, like any accused, deserves the presumption of innocence. Reactionary libertarians should know better than to believe the police.
If the allegations against Kyle are true, what he did was inappropriate, but he did not create a victim and does not belong in jail.
The first group is driven by emotion and fear and have dropped all pretense of being principled libertarians in favor of piling-on against Kyle and anyone else who doesn’t jump on their violent bandwagon. Their belief that teens are children is insulting to young people everywhere who are mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Further, they equate attraction to teens with pedophilia, which is just plain wrong. It’s an emotional, ignorant viewpoint. Here’s more on the difference between ephebophilia, hebephilia, and pedophilia.
We discussed the issues of age of consent and relationships with people under the legal age of consent on Friday night’s episode of Free Talk Live. It got real when Rich Paul revealed his first relationship was at age 13 with a 23-year-old woman. Not only did he consent but he pursued having the relationship in the first place, something that the ageists do not believe is possible. They would tell Rich that he was a victim and that his partner belonged in prison or worse. Calling teens children is a true insult that disempowers young people who just want to be respected as equals.
Here’s the full archive from Friday night’s show if you want to hear a rational, calm discussion on these matters. This link will jump you to the beginning of the second hour of the show where we began the discussion in earnest, though the first hour covers some ideas of independence for young people:
The usual big government suspects came out to support HB 1632 last month, a bill that would make it illegal to provide guns to felons. (Though apparently the bill authors did not know it already is illegal, according to RSA 159:7.) Gun freedom advocates came out to oppose it, but not as many as would on most gun restriction bills, as lots of gun freedom people don’t want to be seen as taking the side of felons.
However, someone had to stick up for felons’ rights, so I testified about how they deserve to be free to defend themselves too. The felons intent on continuing a life of crime won’t be stopped by pesky laws from getting guns, but those who’ve turned their lives around are. They can’t as effectively protect themselves or their families because their “right” to bear arms has been stripped from them.
The committee voted 7-6 to “ITL” the bill. (Inexpedient to Legislate, aka, to recommend the full house kill it.) Here’s the full video of the hearing in the house criminal justice committee:
Keene Native Jared Goodell on WFEA, Weekday Mornings
This morning I was on the radio with WFEA’s Jared Goodell on his Manchester morning talk show to discuss the arrest of state representative Kyle Tasker.
If you haven’t been following, Kyle was arrested this week for allegedly soliciting an undercover cop posing as a teenage female on facebook for sex and later hit with drug dealing charges for drugs found by police in his home.
While most libertarians would defend Kyle on the drug charges, the sex “crime” has divided the liberty community between those who are rational enough to realize that cops lie and someone should be considered innocent until proven guilty and those who throw their supposed principles to the curb when underage sex is the issue. It’s sad. Here’s the interview from this morning’s Jared Goodell show:
As I reminded Jared and his audience, it’s too early to be coming to conclusions. All we know is what the police are claiming. There’s no evidence that has been presented besides an unsigned affidavit with alleged quotes taken out of context. Tasker has yet to have the chance to present any defense from inside his jail cell on $150,000 bail.
Unfortunately, many people lose all sense of rationality when sex with teenagers is the issue. Kyle may as well already be guilty in their eyes, merely because the police have accused him. This rush to judgement is contrary to the founding principles of this country and even if it turns out he did what he’s accused of doing, Kyle STILL did not create a victim at any point.
State Representative Kyle Tasker Faces 60 Years for Victimless Crimes
Liberty-friendly state representative Kyle Tasker of Nottingham is currently sitting in Rockingham county jail on $150,000 bail. He’s facing (so far) four felony charges that could result in 60 years of prison. However, he never harmed another human being. You may not want him dating your daughter, but he’s not actually created any actual victims with his “crimes”.
He’s facing three class A felony drug distribution charges for cannabis, psilocybin (mushrooms), and suboxone which were uncovered during a search of Kyle’s home after he was arrested for a class A felony count of “Certain Uses of Computer Services Prohibited”. The computer charge alleges that Kyle had intended to meet for sex with a 14-year-old female, who turned out to be an undercover cop pretending to be the girl.
According to an unsigned five page affidavit allegedly from Nottingham police, Tasker did initially meet S.J., a real 14-year-old female at a breakfast with his parents. After friending her on facebook, the police allege that he offered to acquire for her alcohol and cannabis and further requested a threesome with him and a “lady friend”. The affidavit says SJ unfriended Kyle and deleted the messages. At some point, SJ’s mother, identified as “KJ” in the affidavit, became aware of the communications and she called the police.
While the daughter, SJ, had already solved the problem by unfriending Kyle, the mother, KJ, decided to punish Kyle and the rest of society, by siccing the police against him. Now instead of producing for society by drilling wells (his day job when not serving at the state house), Kyle may be sitting in prison for up to 60 years, which we’ll all be forced to pay for. How does this benefit anyone?
Dylan Gingues and state rep Kyle Tasker with a big jar of primo cannabis outside the State House.
After KJ’s call to the police, they took control of SJ’s facebook account. Detective Chris Gilroy began to masquerade as though he were SJ and conversations allegedly about drugs and sex began. The unsigned police affidavit does not include any full conversation logs, and only the police’s side of the story. They excerpt certain alleged statements made by Kyle, but do not reveal any context around what detective Gilroy might have said to elicit those statements from Kyle.
Despite the conversations between the cop and Kyle, the actual teenager was never in any danger. Her mother could have congratulated her daughter for removing Kyle as a friend and if the mom wanted to go further, spread the word about Kyle’s interactions with her daughter. However, now countless police hours, court hours, and jurors’ hours will be wasted, and potentially dozens of years could be spent in jail, all because of an insane war on drugs and a system that punishes thought crime.
You may not like Kyle Tasker, but he didn’t create any victims. The police are the only ones who have victimized anyone here. They’ve victimized Kyle and all New Hampshire taxpayers by forcing us to pay for his trial and incarceration, while actual violent criminals face a mere fraction of the time Kyle is facing in prison. Selling drugs should not be illegal and neither should talking on the internet. Fraud however should be punished, but the only people engaging in fraud in this case were Nottingham police.
