Opinion: William Kostric and Me

Photo: “Magical Fairy-Tale Land” - St. Matthew’s Episcopal Chapel in Sugar Hill, NH. Rectilinear Panorama. ©Stephen D. Clark

Last night, I was reading comments to an article on a New Hampshire liberal website, “Miscellany Blue,” about legal and ethical improprieties with three Republican candidates for state offices (published 2 Nov.). One of the candidates in the article was N.H. state Representative Kevin Avard and his “arrests for violating a domestic violence protective order and driving under the influence (with mugshot), in addition to being delinquent on child support payments, having his SUV repossessed and participating in court-ordered alcohol counseling“ (“N.H. GOP state Senate candidates face the music“).

There was a comment to the article from one Mr. William Kostric, a N.H. resident whose name is known to me because he made local and national news in 2009 for standing outside of an Obama healthcare rally at Portsmouth Senior High School while visibly armed and holding up a sign that called for political violence. He was openly carrying a pistol in a holster strapped to his thigh. The sign read, “It is time to water the Tree of Liberty.” That was a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.“

Kostric was calling for bloodshed over political disagreements instead of arguing them out in the political arena and letting the ballots decide. It was both extremely offensive and very dangerous. What good will votes do if the losers of elections can open up with gunfire just because they lost?

Within the context of contemporary American representative democracy, what that kind of statement says is that political violence is justified when a party loses elections and policy fights. These losses, it’s alleged, will be proof of tyranny even though there are no other real tyrannies at which to point. Political opponents aren’t arrested and jailed or mysteriously kidnapped or murdered. We’re not having mass roundups of opposition partisans. The law courts aren’t enslaved to the executive branch.

We still have open elections without coercion. There’s no tyranny.

So I saw a comment from William Kostric to the article on Miscellany Blue. Having been offended by what he did in 2009, I wanted to get in his face and give him some push-back. I wanted to see how he would defend himself. I wanted his reaction. I saw it. He weaseled. He dodged responsibility and then tried to say that he isn’t being evasive.

• Kostric: Congratulations Kevin!
• Me: Isn’t it time to start murdering other Americans over your political grievances?
• Kostric: Funny thing is, you probably think that comment was witty or deep.
• Me: No. I think it’s the direct implication of what you said you were for.
• Kostric: Your thinking is muddled by your biases. Isn’t it time to start murdering foreigners over your political grievances?
• Me: So you want to change the subject away from what you said? Goes to show how much you meant it. Just what I thought. All talk, no action. Maybe you can stir up someone else and get them to go first and see if it’s safe for you.
• Kostric: Do you have a direct quote?
• Me: It was on your sign: “The time has come to water the Tree of Liberty.” Isn’t that it? Or, at least, isn’t it close enough?
• Kostric: Right. Sorry. That was a Restore the Republic sign. I picked it up out of the pile, didn’t pay much attention to what it said. But hey, if it hadn’t been for that (fortuitous?) pick, our protest probably wouldn’t have gotten any national press and since a fair number of people have signed up for the Free State Project because of having seen that interview, it all worked out for the best.
• Me: You held up a sign calling for bloody rebellion while you were wearing a pistol but you didn’t know what the sign said? What an amazing coincidence. Yeah, I’d run away from that linkage, too. I’m glad to read that you won’t admit to it. I consider it an impersonal victory. There’s no way that there will be an armed uprising that won’t involve neighbor murdering neighbor. To urge such a thing would be hideous. I’m glad to read that you don’t want to be that way.
• Kostric: Are you aware of the origins of the quote?
• Me: I wouldn’t consider it hideous if I didn’t. Thomas Jefferson kept a sex slave. You know that, right?
• Kostric: Yes, I’m also aware of the private lives of Dr. King and Ghandi. Would you care to draw a comparison?
• Me: I’m not the one quoting them. Again, what I read is a wish to change the subject. That’s understandable.
• Kostric: You wish to further discuss the sign?
• Me: What interests me is all the talk about rebellion, but, when somebody actually does something, all the people who said it was a good idea turn around and say: “What? He was NUTS!” All talk. No action. Just a lot of dangerous hot air.
• Kostric: I wasn’t aware that you got to determine what “THE” subject was when you replied to my comment. I would have thought that since I started the thread, the subject would be congratulating Kevin Avard. Etiquette would dictate that if YOU wanted to change the subject you should have started a new comment thread or, if you just wanted to ask about rebellion, you could have messaged me privately. What is it about rebellion you’d like to know? Try and ask a specific question if you want an actual answer.
• Me: I saw that you were commenting, and I wanted to make sure that my disdain for what you did is manifest not just to you, but to the public at large. It’s a debate worth having because people need to understand what you said really means. It means people who agree with you shooting at people like me who don’t. We voted for the people you want dead. That means we won’t be quiet about it, which means death squads in the middle of the night. The American public won’t buy that. Not only is it morally reprehensible, but it’s intellectually indefensible. There is no tyranny in the United States now that’s any greater than what has preceded this time, and what has existed in the past has been worse. Guns didn’t prevent it. They ensured it.
• Kostric: I have no idea what you’re ranting about and you have yet to ask me a question. All I can gather is that you want the world to know that disapprove of me, or at least that you disapprove of the strawman you’ve created for me. Ok, I think you’ve gotten what you wanted. Have a nice night.
  Me: Yeah, I know you have no idea. You said so. You said that you didn’t pay attention to the sign you were holding. Apparently you didn’t realize that it called for political violence. What an extraordinary coincidence that you happened to be visibly armed at the same time. But of course you’re not copping out. Your words must mean what you say they do unless they’re written on a sign that you’ve gone to the trouble to hold up in public. Nice little victory for the point that I want to make, which is that the idea represented in the sign you happened to be holding at the time is intellectually indefensible within the context of the current political moment of the past six years. You won’t defend your action. You express an excuse (“I ... didn’t pay much attention to what it said”), which makes me suspect that you can’t defend it, though the suspicion is drifting into conviction because I know for sure that it’s indefensible.
• Kostric: You still haven’t asked me a question. All you’re doing is running off at the mouth, and confirming your own biases. You’ve got your head stuck in an echo chamber and you’re claiming that you have consensus.
• Me: I’m more interested in making a statement. Respond to it how you like. What I’ve gotten out of this is your repudiation of your own action. I find that bit of information infinitely valuable.
  Kostric: You haven’t gotten a repudiation of anything, but keep deluding yourself it it makes you feel good.
• Me: When you replied to me that you “picked [the sign] up out of the pile, didn’t pay much attention to what it said,” you repudiated your responsibility for making a statement to support political violence. I have always thought that it was an irresponsible statement. Your excuse confirms my opinion, and I’m delighted about that.
• Kostric: No, I didn’t repudiate anything. That’s just you delighting in your delusions. I told the truth, and you drew inferences that don’t exist. You should familiarize yourself with this concept. [Wikipedia link to “Non sequitor”]
• Me: You said that you didn’t pay attention to what the sign said. The only logical inference in such a statement reads “I didn’t mean it.” That’s a repudiation. So now you’re saying that you meant it when you held up a sign saying “It’s time to water the Tree of Liberty?” Is that what you’re saying? That would be to repudiate your repudiation.

I consider Kostric’s responses to be a victory for the point that I want made, which is that it’s unethical to call for political violence as a response to losing elections and policy fights in the context of the current American political environment. Now he won’t justify the view his public demonstration with a gun and a sign encouraged. Kostric‘s declension to argue for the view he once supported proves my view right through default. It‘s a tacit concession.

His very recent responses were ones to deny responsibility for his own actions, and then to try and deny that he’s trying to deny. That’s weaseling. He tries to deny his concession, but it’s logically impossible given the sequence of his own statements in the conversation.

When I argue a point, I argue to win. It’s still an ongoing conversation as far as I’m concerned unless he decides to permanently stop replying, but he’s boxed himself in.

Some hero for the American political right. To do what he did back then was nutty. To evade responsibility for it now is sleazy. I don’t see how he can recover.