Surviving the Sharks

On June 25 I arrived at Kamaole Beach Park One at about 11 a.m., an hour before High Noon, Shark Feeding time. I wore cut-offs, slippers, a tank top, a baseball cap and a small backpack containing several bottles of red liquid. I carried the sign that I showed in the previous blog post.  

My plan was to display the sign for a half hour at the nearby traffic light where people have plenty of time to read it; then to walk 50 yards to the beach, set the sign up there and wait for the countdown. However, the place was crawling with cops and they quickly spotted me. Unfortunately, the person who had agreed to videotape all this was in the hospital due to a car accident, so I can only describe what happened.

The police played it cool. Only one of the officers approached me while the others watched from a couple hundred feet away. He stood on the other side of a short hedge and drew me into a conversation about my grievances. He said he had read some of my blog posts and sympathized with some of my points. When he asked whether I had blood in the backpack and what my intentions were, I said I choose to remain silent.

Far from doing so however, I proceeded to engage him in a spirited, angry and loud (especially on my part) argument about the county’s policy on perjury that allows false imprisonment with complete impunity. The passersby on foot and in cars seemed astonished to see a protester with a sign, waving his arms and angrily ranting at a police officer just a few feet away.

Over the years I’ve had many unpleasant run-ins with police officers who have no respect for constitutional rights and who lack common sense. I have written about some of these. However this young officer impressed me as professional and smart. He listened well, was respectful and stayed calm.

Unfortunately, toward the end of our heated discussion he disappointed me twice. First, he claimed he could arrest me for disorderly conduct because he could easily find witnesses to say my sign had alarmed them. I replied that people who hold Trump-for-President signs alarm me and others, but they aren’t arrested.

The First Amendment protects them and me. There is no legal right to never be alarmed. Anyway, good luck getting people to reserve a day for court and go to Wailuku to testify against me.

Second, he wound up his argument against my three demands by saying, “You can’t expect the county to apologize for past mistakes”. But I have always explicitly disavowed any demand for an apology or for legal accountability -- that level of justice is an impossible dream at this point. I have simply demanded that, going forward from here, the policy be changed to conform to the law, and that perjury victims be notified of their rights and police of their responsibilities.

The officer was adamant that this could not and would not happen. I’m not certain what his reasoning was, but this mule-headed attitude, this inflexibility and inability to do what is pono, what is right ethically and legally, if it might imply admission of past wrongdoing, illustrates a great deal of what is wrong with this county. You can’t fix something if you refuse to recognize that it’s broken.

It takes impressive mental gymnastics to avoid seeing that the justice system is broken when a person can be arrested and jailed for weeks and months on flimsy perjury, that the perjurer pays no price for the legal abduction when the sworn lies are exposed, and that the county government refuses to take steps to prevent such travesties in the future. Refuses to even discuss it.

It takes willful blindness not to see that the county’s policy violates due process and separation of powers, undermines the integrity of the justice system, and causes victims serious harm. It also hands criminals a weapon they can use against their victims. All this is obvious to reasonable people, but not to the police or to the county lawyers and bosses. It takes a special kind of stupid to be one of these people.    

About 11:30 I went down to the beach, lots of eyes following me. I displayed my sign as I strolled along. It was gusty and I struggled a bit with the sign. Beachgoers who read it seemed puzzled but interested. Suddenly a male police officer joined me in my stroll, placing himself between me and the ocean. We chatted in a relaxed manner. Like the other officer, he was young, smart, professional and respectful, but we didn’t get into the issues or my demands.

We joked a bit about whether he could outrun me if I made a dash for the ocean. I may be more than twice his age, but I’m barefoot while he’s wearing standard police shoes. Then he pointed to the lifeguard boat up on the beach with the rescue squad standing ready.

I realized that If I dashed for the water and dived in, I wouldn’t get more than a couple hundred feet before they snatched me. I’d be wet, salty, sandy and cold. I’d go to jail or a psych ward that way and not get out until Monday at the soonest. They could use the “suicidal” label as an excuse to confine me and torture me (this is standard practice, though not by police). Better I live to fight another day. I went home.

This was not a wasted effort. It showed yet again that Maui government criminals will stop at nothing to keep the illegal policy in place. Of course, the local pseudo-journalists with the local media have no interest in any of this. They will not mention, much less investigate and report on, these important issues.

I sent an email to all the council members. It said, "Does someone have to be murdered before you take a stand for the rule of law and the reinstatement of our constitutional rights?

Someday a victim of the perjury decrim policy will go into a rage and kill either the perjurer who sent him/her to jail with sworn lies (a form of abduction) or a county official he/she blames for the insane, illegal policy. Blood will be on your hands when this happens.

The Mayor's office says there is no perjury decrim, an outrageous lie, perjury on top of perjury and about perjury. If this is true, why not meet my simple demands? Why not educate the public and police officers that perjury will be treated like any other serious crime -- investigated and prosecuted? Why has the mayor refused for 15 years to do this?

To repeat my demands:  inform the public that complaints of perjury can be filed with the police; inform the police that complaints of perjury are to be treated like any other serious crime; add a black box warning about perjury on the TRO petition form.

There is no doubt the Council could pressure the mayor to abide by the law. Is there not an honest, ethical soul amongst you?"

I think they have answered this question with a resounding, "No, there is not."

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com.