Shoot the Mayor!

Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton was fatally shot by law officers when he took his ongoing battle with Kirkwood, Mo. City Hall to the next level. Thornton claimed city leaders and stifled and harassed him in the past, and had filed a federal lawsuit charging Kirkwood officials of violating his constitututional rights to free speech by banning him from speaking at their meetings. He had been arrested and hauled off in handcuffs after asserting his constitutional rights in 2006 at a meeting where he protested the persecution by the mayor and the city attorney, accusing the city of operating under a “jackass plantation mentality.”

Thornton took the battle to City Hall when he walked into the council chambers, shooting a police officer and yelling, "Shoot the mayor!" Three city officials were shot dead and will no longer be causing torment and strife in Kirkwood residents lives. Unfortunately, Mayor Mike Swobada was only critically wounded. Two jackbooted police officers were also eliminated in the battle.

“The only way that I can put into context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people, the government that was putting torment and strife into his life," Gerald Thornton, the gunman's brother, said. "He has spoke on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied all rights to the access of protection and he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue."

It's too bad that even our city governments have degenerated to the level where citizens are driven to violence in order to have their voices heard. That's what appears to have happened in Kirkwood and is growing across the country.

U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry, who had dismissed Thornton's free speech lawsuit was not present in the chambers at the time of the attack. "Any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint-neutral and served important governmental interests," Perry wrote. "Thornton does not have a 1st Amendment right to engage in irrelevant debate and to voice repetitive, personal, virulent attacks against Kirkwood and its city officials."

In city council chambers, courtrooms, federal hearing rooms, and newsrooms, the Socialists in our government are doing all they can to shut up any voice of opposition. We've also seen the quelching of the freedom message recently in the presidential campaign when certain candidates have been minimalized, banned from public debates, and denied access to resouces available only to the hand-picked corporate candidates.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that more individuals are being driven to take desperate measures after being frustrated by a system that has abandoned the public trust. This sort of violence is not new and it's not over. We've seen it errupt on our school campuses, shopping malls, city streets, corporate offices, and courtrooms across the country. Until the establishment that insists on spreading Socialism in our society is defeated, the war will continue.