Ben Whitmer "Holds Court" on His Blog: The World Ends at Midnight!

"Constitutional rights ain’t contingent on what some shitheel judge says. That goes for the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and every amendment thereafter. We have rights which ain’t bound by any pig, judge or otherwise."--Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer

"They ought to give a medal for throwing Snapple over a fence. Or off a building. Or down a flight of stairs."--Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer, 5-21-08

"We can't stop chuckling at that wacky Snapple. Here's hoping he manages to break his neck sharpening a pencil one of these days."--posted on Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer's deleted blog

The Denver Post (8-6-08) reports on the DNC security trial:

A federal judge [U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger] has ruled [on July 29, 2008] that the city and county of Denver and the U.S. Secret Service do not have to alter their security plans for the Pepsi Center portion of the Democratic National Convention.

Advocacy groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed a lawsuit against the government challenging security restrictions during the DNC and arguing that their free-speech rights were going to be infringed upon.

"The defendants have shown that the restrictions are content-neutral, that they are narrowly tailored to serve important governmental interests and that there are adequate alternative channels by which the plaintiffs can communicate their messages," U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger wrote in her 71-page opinion. "Thus, the plaintiffs have not shown that their First Amendment rights will be infringed nor that they are entitled to any injunctive relief."

The demonstrators wanted the public-protest area moved closer to the delegates coming in and out of the Pepsi Center, and they wanted parade routes to end closer to the venue.

Law-enforcement officials and Denver representatives argued during a one-day trial that there has been a robust effort made to allow groups of all backgrounds to demonstrate and that security concerns superceded the demonstrators' need to be closer to the delegates...

On the day of the trial, a Colorado publication called Westword (7-29-08) reported that a blogger-anarchist named Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer [scroll down here] has toiled clandestinely on the website of an "advocacy group" called Recreate 68:

The courtroom of U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger was packed on July 29 for the all-day trial over whether the Democratic National Convention security arrangements being planned by the city and the Secret Service pass the Constitutional smell test. The lawsuit was originally filed in May by the ACLU on behalf of numerous groups that wish to hold events and demonstrations during convention week, such as Recreate 68 and Escuela Tlatelolco...

Recreate 68 organizer and spokesman Mark Cohen asserted that R-68 has made it clear from the beginning that they are committed to non-violent civil disobedience and any perception to the contrary is the result of misinformation from and misquotes by the press.

The defense presented Cohen with an e-booklet pulled from the R-68 website called “Bodyhammer: Tactics and Self-defense for the Modern Protester” that explains how to create shields, improvised body armor and special techniques for charging police lines. Cohen testified that the website is run by R-68 members Glenn Spagnuolo and Tryworks blogger Benjamin Whitmer. [Hat Tip Mr. Martin--see his article here]

"Wood Rasp" Whitmer has a history of threatening Denver journalists. He once wrote this about Vincent Carroll, the editor of the Rocky Mountain News:

Fuck Vince Carroll...Fuck him with every ghastly medieval torture device known to humankind.... Had we our way, we'd stake his lower intestine to the ground and make the motherfucker take a half-mile walk. [Westword 1-18-07]

Whitmer wrote on his blog that that Patricia Calhoun, the editor of Westword, should be "fucked with a wood rasp." I wrote about this here.

Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer has now issued a "legal rebuttal" (8-6-08) to U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger's July 29, 2008 ruling in favor of the city and county of Denver and the U.S. Secret Service that manages to be Ben's usual banal amalgam of ignorance, illiteracy, and profanity:

Constitutional rights ain’t contingent on what some shitheel judge says. That goes for the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, and every amendment thereafter. We have rights which ain’t bound by any pig, judge or otherwise.

It evidently has never occurred to Ben that not everyone settles his problems by brandishing a wood rasp or "holding court" on his blog. We have courts, judges, and constitutional lawyers for a reason: They interpret the laws–including “the law of the land,” the Constitution.

Professor Larry Tribe, a famous Harvard Constitutional lawyer, would probably explain it to his students this way:

The Constitution is short; it cannot and does not attempt to cover every eventuality. Even when it seems it is clear, there can be conflicting rights, conflicting spheres of power. When disputes arise, it comes time for people, and most importantly judges of the Judicial Branch, to interpret the Constitution.

Obviously, if Recreate 68 had peaceful intentions, they would not have called themselves Recreate 68 because their name stands for recreating the riots that occured at the DNC in Chicago in 1968; they would not have a website run by Ben "Wood Rasp" Whitmer; and they would not be posting a manual called “Bodyhammer: Tactics and Self-defense for the Modern Protester," which--to quote Westword (8-29-08)--"explains how to create shields, improvised body armor and special techniques for charging police lines."