PrintFebruary 9, 2008
The Bizarre Activism of Kurt Daims
One look at Mr. Kurt Daims and it is not unreasonable to assume that he is a militant devotee of his homeland's progressive jihad. The red beret, the flocculent, graying beard, the psychoneurotic glare; classic telltale signs of the average Bush-loathing liberal whose mind is incessantly preoccupied with the myriad, aimless pedantries that periodically offer those of his ilk reasons for their existence.
In a way, Mr. Daims is reminiscent of, and probably shares a similar dignified demeanor with that lovable fixture of medieval culture commonly referred to as the "Village Idiot". But to be fair, one must not judge a book by its cover; one should look instead at the man's actions to judge more accurately; and what better place to start than the small town of Brattleboro in Vermont, at the last board meeting of the town's selectmen.
It is there where, in accordance with a signed petition organized by the aforementioned Mr.Daims, a motion was entertained on a ballot, which is to go to a town wide vote on March this year, and is intended to give the citizens of Brattleboro the opportunity to vote on the immediate arrest of President Bush and Vice-president Cheney, shortly after they are duly booked on charges of perjury, espionage, and miscellaneous war crimes. The rascals!
Indeed, this somewhat unorthodox maneuver represents what could be loosely described as a misdirected act of plebian civics; one of those thankfully rare incidents in which a group of disgruntled citizens, girded with a decidedly parochial interpretation of the principle of self-governance, have actually come to the conclusion that it is a vibrant expression of the highest democratic ideals to vote on incarcerating their commander in chief. It would appear also that Mr. Daims and his hapless recruits are driven by the shared hope, that since they could not muster enough votes to elect someone other than the current president, perhaps, in the parallel reality in which most liberals seem to perennially abide, their votes may now count to have him arrested.
It is doubtful that the motion itself will earn Mr. Daims anything other than the notorious distinction as local eccentric who engages in the kind of political dialogue that barely rises to the level of that which would even merit a stern rebuke from the king of Spain. But in the event that this tomfoolery is even playfully entertained, the evidence for arriving at Mr. Daims' verdict would be found sorely wanting.
On the remote chance that this "evidence" could procure any validation in a court of law, the imaginary indictments would necessarily have to extend to a good portion of presently active members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, not to mention several world leaders, who are on record as being highly supportive and fully aware of the consequences of the military assessments that prompted Mr. Daims' fantastic accusations in the first place, and who may not take too kindly to being charged with war crimes by a few local yokels from a small town in New England which they never heard of.
It is unlikely that this bemused company of idle selectmen -- whose most recent earth-shattering deliberations entailed the dispensation of a few liquor licenses and the allocation of sufficient funds to refurbish the town's sidewalks -- would heartily welcome such a challenge.
No doubt there are many others out there like Mr. Daims -- as prone to venturing comparisons between President Bush and Adolph Hitler -- who would relish the idea of watching the president and vice-president be frog-walked out of the White House in ankle cuffs. Had Mr. Daims drawn a less incendiary analogy, there's no telling whether he would have had fared better in persuading the few irritated e-mailers who read about his petition, but did not seem fully convinced of the legitimacy of his crusade.
Mr. Daims embodies the breed of progressive that remains unperturbed by the facts and primarily animated by an unremitting hatred and repugnance toward everything the current administration represents. It is this dearth of rationality that inspires a constant sojourning of the mythical universe in which they are free to envisage and deploy hare-brained proposals like demanding that the president of the United States be locked up by the local sheriff.
