What We Learned When We Left Ed Kelly a Gift Basket
What If Stepford had Facebook?
By William J. Hamilton, III
Unity City, Moms for Liberty or Sovereign Citizens might be happening in your neighborhood. We're working on refining tools to make sure the home you buy remains comfortable and you have neighbors you can trust.
Important issues weren’t addressed until after midnight. Kelly bears more responsibility than anyone else for what’s wrong. A year after being dismissed as Chairman, he still functions as Moms for Liberty’s manager for their five-member majority. He’s also one of the stars of Unity City.
You can see some images of the demonstration on Facebook. As planned, most of the activity was at our tent outside the neighborhood on public property. Three activists, including William Hamilton made a short visit to the sidewalk in front of Kelly’s home. We didn’t meet anyone from his family there. We didn’t go into his yard or driveway. We followed the demonstration plan reviewed by the police. We encountered one hostile person. We treated them calmly with respect. We left a small symbolic gift basket for Kelly and left.
Please review this short video of our strange encounter in Carolina Park.
If you want to know what it would be like to live in a Lowcounty controlled by Moms for Liberty and Unity City, this weird little videoclip, recorded as we dropped off a gift basket of symbolic items for Ed Kelly during a five-minute visit to the sidewalk his home on Monday, gives you some idea of what these people have planned for us all.
In our visits to Carolina park, we couldn’t figure out why people who seemed friendly to us also seemed afraid. We expected a little hostility from far-right conservatives, but we’re prepared for and used to that. It was only after we met this man and reviewed the online snark from Next Door that we grasped what was going on. The people in Carolina Park weren’t afraid of us. They were afraid of guys like this, a significant group of which seem to be clustered in the area.
While we know something bad is happening in the Northern part of Mount Pleasant, we can't pinpoint it to a single area or neighborhood at this time.
Buying A Home Without Checking Could be a Devastating Mistake
If you are buying a home, your due diligence should now include getting the contribution reports for far right candidates like Kelly from the State Ethics Commission or Federal Elections Commission whose districts include the home location you are considering and pinpoint mapping them. Christian Dominionists and Sovereign Citizens tend to gather in clusters, either by recruiting already conservative neighbors, people they meet at church or getting friends to move into the neighborhood. There is clearly a concentration of such people in North Mt. Pleasant. If you don’t have time to do all of that, at least check the voting returns for the precinct the property is located in. If far right candidates are getting a lot of votes, perhaps you want a different type of neighbor.
Until we have a mapping operation running, please protect yourself and be certain these people don’t take over your Home Owners Association. Check public voting records. If you have a friend who is politically active, their NPV Data processing system (NationBuilder for Republicans, Votebuilder for Democrats) can answer these questions quickly if a very competent operator with access to the right voting data is available.
Watch Your HOA
You should also be certain your HOA’s management isn’t run by a corporation which has ties to companies like what was formerly known as Blackwater. Some of these security companies manage hundreds or even thousands of HOAs.
These are the same companies which were providing private security in Iraq and Afghanistan. They work around the world. HOA management uses a similar skill set and is a useful way for them to keep their staffs working between wars.
Unanswered Questions
We don’t know who the man who videorecorded and threatened us in front of Mike Kelly's home is. We don’t know why he has a problem with the police. His behavior and vocabulary sounds like something from the Sovereign Citizens movement. We’ve had other reports that groups of Sovereign Citizens were involved in Unity City. One of our members encountered an entire group of them leafleting outside the Post Office in Summerville in late May. Sovereign citizens are populists which refuse to recognize most government authority. Some convene their own citizens' courts, decide “causes of action” and even attempt to issue their own court orders. We don’t know if this man is one of them or not, but it’s clear Sovereign Citizens are supportive of Unity City.
As an attorney of 39 years experience, William Hamilton can handle such threats. The other two demonstrators, who don’t want to be dragged into some crazy suburban kangaroo court, weren’t impressed either. We haven’t heard from Ed Kelly on how he feels about it.
Your takeaways about picking a neighborhood
Check to be sure you aren’t buying or leasing a home in an area dominated by Sovereign Citizens or Christian Dominionists using precinct voting data or contribution records or NPV voting data. Lurk the relevant Next Door rooms and compare them to other places. If it is shortly before an election, check for yard signs.
Use a reliable, progressive real estate agent who understands your values.
Make sure your HOA doesn’t fall under the control of a group of such people. Don’t neglect to attend HOA elections.
Make sure your HOA management isn’t linked to a corporation which does the sort of security work you would be afraid to have focused on you or your family if men or women who used to secure facilities in Iraq or Afghanistan decided to use those skills or tools to watch or control you.
Democracy begins in your neighborhood and if that goes sour, your family and property values will suffer. Find a good neighborhood and contribute to make it a strong, vital one which contributes to it's municipality, county, state and nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment