David McElroy

If you’re going to Washington, D.C., for the Fourth of July, I strongly suggest that you don’t take a gun. And I suggest even more strongly that you don’t follow Adam Kokesh on a “peaceful” armed march on the city.

We can agree about the outcomes we want, but still strongly disagree about how to get there. We can even disagree about whether there’s anything reasonable to be done which would bring about the desired outcome at the moment.

Kokesh calls himself a libertarian, but I’m not familiar with what all he believes. I just know of him as a flamboyant and loud activist. If that’s your thing, it’s your business. It’s just not my way, so I’m not especially interested in that sort of activism. And I definitely don’t have a death wish — or a desire to lead a bunch of people into being arrested in order to play the role of martyr or victim.

Kokesh had already been promoting the Fourth of July armed march, but he upped the stakes last week. After a recent arrest in Philadelphia — which appeared unjustified based on my cursory viewing of the video — Kokesh called for an “American Revolutionary Army to March on 50 State Capitols.” Here’s his full announcement, if you’d like to make sure I’m not taking him out of context.

If you’re following someone who suddenly calls on an “army” to march on every state capitol in the country and forcibly demand the immediate dissolution of the national government, you should seriously wonder about the person you’re following. Even if we agree on desired ends — and I suspect that I would generally agree with what Kokesh wants for society — you have to wonder about the judgement and mental stability of someone making that sort of plea and hoping for people to obey.

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A middle school principal in Massachusetts apparently thinks it’s bad to reward high achievers — because it might hurt the feelings of those who don’t do as well.

David Fabrizio is principal of Ipswich Middle School in Ipswich, Mass., and he canceled the school’s annual honors night this year. Here’s what he said in his explanation to parents.

“The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade point average,” Fabrizio wrote in his letter to parents.

Fabrizio also cited fairness as a reason to cancel honors night. He said in his letter than academic success can partly be about the amount of support a student has at home — so honoring high achievers isn’t fair to those who don’t have the same support at home.

Thankfully, some parents were outraged and voiced their disapproval, at which time the principal demonstrated that he was not only politically correct, but was quite willing to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In a second letter to parents, Fabrizio said he plans to honor top-performing students at the annual end-of-the-year assembly, when honored students can be recognized in front of the whole student body.

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It’s Memorial Day in the United States, a day we set aside to remember men and women who’ve died in wars. Politicians make a lot of speeches today and lay a lot of wreaths, but the best way to honor the fallen would be to quit using the men and women of the military as expendable pawns in a global game for world influence.

There’s something honorable about fighting for something you believe in, and I respect the dedication and bravery of many thousands of those who’ve died. But since we can’t bring them back to life (and we can’t change the horrors they lived through), the best we can do is change how the U.S. government conducts itself around the globe so that fewer Americans will join the ones being honored today in military cemeteries — and fewer loved ones will face living without them.

Even if we set aside the question of the legitimacy of the state, there’s much to be gained from making U.S. foreign policy less intrusive and less aggressive. It’s not the business of the U.S. government what happens around the world, and it’s not U.S. taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for whatever happens elsewhere. It’s not U.S. soldiers’ legitimate role to die invading countries which haven’t attacked their country.

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