By Ryan “Dickie” Thompson
Barry Cooper is not some stranger I decided to take a swing at.
Sixteen or seventeen years ago, I was cheering him on from the cheap seats. When he launched Kop Busters, setting up stings to catch dirty cops, I loved it.TrendHunter.com+1
On my old activist YouTube channel, xCannabis, I pushed his work hard. I made videos about Never Get Busted and Kop Busters, talked him up, defended him when people said he had gone too far. That little un-monetized channel ended up pulling more than a million views total on content that boosted Barry’s work.
I did that because I believed in what he was doing. Former Texas narcotics officer turns around and starts exposing the drug war machine. Teaches people how to protect themselves. Uses stings and cameras to show how corrupt the system is.Wikipedia+1
So let me say this at the top:
This is not a hit piece.
I still think a lot of Barry’s post-cop work has been brave and important. If he dropped a new project tomorrow exposing some sleazy DEA operation, I would be the first guy to hit Share.
My problem is not his past. My problem is what he is doing right now.
He is obsessing over Candace Owens, trying hard to smear her, and deleting reasonable pushback from people who have supported him for years.
That is what this is about.
The loyalty line in the sand
On his Facebook page, Barry basically told people: if you support Candace Owens, I cannot be your friend.
No nuance. No “I disagree with her on X, Y, and Z, here is why.” Just a hard line.
So I commented, under my profile “Rich Garvey Banton.” I reminded him that I had been a serious supporter for 16 years. That I posted his early work on my xCannabis channel, which got hundreds of thousands of views for his stuff alone. That I never took a dime for it. I did it because I believed he was doing something good for humanity.
And I said:
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Candace is also a hero to me.
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I am not your enemy. I see myself as a brother.
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I am sad to watch you go on the offensive against another truth seeker.
That comment stayed up for a bit. Then more of the conversation unfolded, and eventually a whole chunk of it disappeared.
Why? I honestly do not know. But it felt like Barry was not just disagreeing. He was curating what his audience is allowed to see.
The argument over Candace’s investigation
The big friction point was Candace’s public investigation into the killing of her friend, Charlie.
Love her or hate her, Candace Owens is a high profile conservative commentator. She has been called far right, she has pushed some wild theories, and she is currently neck deep in controversy and lawsuits.New York Post+3Wikipedia+3Encyclopedia Britannica+3
Barry’s position seemed to be: she is making claims to millions of people, so she is dangerous and must be called out.
I agreed with part of that. Big platforms should absolutely be scrutinized.
Where we parted ways is on the nature of what she is doing.
In my comments, I said she is not acting like a cop or a judge. She is not arresting anyone. She is asking questions, putting out pieces of data, and inviting the public to dig. She even reached out to people with access to critical evidence, like the camera footage behind Charlie, and updated her own followers when there was “not much to see there.”
That is not how dogmatic con artists behave. That is how a loud, imperfect, public investigator behaves.
Barry replied:
“You’re determined to defend logical fallacies. That’s a real problem.”
He said there was “literally no way” to argue his logic was wrong, and that he was ending the conversation.
The ex-cop famous for questioning authority suddenly decided his own view was beyond questioning. That is when my respect started to wobble.
Who is actually committing the fallacies?
I am a logic nerd, so I spelled it out in my next replies, the ones he deleted.
I listed the classic fallacies that were actually creeping into his argument:
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Appeal to authority: “I am the true investigator, believe me when I tell you what she is doing.”
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Ad hominem: going after her character more than her evidence.
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Straw man: talking as if she is making final legal judgments when she is really running a rolling theory board.
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Hasty generalization, slippery slope, circular reasoning: acting like one commentator’s mistakes prove she is a huge threat to civilization, then using that fear to justify more attacks.
I also said something he did not address: when Candace gets something wrong, she often corrects herself publicly. That alone puts her miles ahead of most politicians and corporate media.
Is she perfect? No. Has she pushed things I do not buy? Yes. But being wrong sometimes is not the same thing as being the enemy.
And none of that explains why Barry felt the need to draw a friendship line around her name and start hitting delete on pushback from long-time allies.
From “Kop Busters” to busting comments
Back when Barry launched Kop Busters, he was setting up fake grow houses to catch cops in lies. He laid traps that exposed no-knock raids and corrupt departments on camera.TrendHunter.com+1
He understood something basic: if you want to see the truth, you have to let the tape roll. You do not get to script reality. You document it.
Now, on his own page, he is trimming reality. He is cleaning up his comment section so that his followers see a nice, neat version of the conversation where his logic stands unchallenged.
Look, his Facebook page is his property. As a libertarian, I defend his right to moderate however he wants.
But let us be honest about what it means:
When the guy who built his name on transparency starts erasing polite criticism, he is not acting like the rebel cop buster. He is acting like a small-scale platform moderator, deciding which dissent his audience can handle.
That is not censorship by law. But it is censorship in spirit.
Big Tech and the mini-me version
One of my screenshots is from Facebook itself. A woman posted, “I think some recreational drugs here and there can really be a good thing.” with a thumbs-up emoji. Facebook removed it and rejected her appeal because it violates “Community Standards.”
Meta’s own rules say they restrict content that promotes the sale or use of illicit or recreational drugs.Facebook+3Transparency+3Transparency+3
So a casual opinion about recreational drugs is now treated like a cartel ad.
Barry knows this game. His whole career after policing has been about opposing the drug war, bad raids, and abusive enforcement.Wikipedia
Yet he is now running a pocket version of the same thing. Big Tech censors one side of the drug debate, and Barry censors one side of the Candace debate.
It feels like hiring the fire department to mow your lawn. It is the wrong tool, used for the wrong job, and your house still burns down.
This is not about picking a team
Let me repeat: I am not saying “Everyone must support Candace Owens.”
She is a lightning rod. She has made harsh comments about a lot of people. She has taken positions on Israel, COVID, race, and now Charlie’s killing that trigger huge reactions.Wikipedia+2Encyclopedia Britannica+2
Scrutinize her. Debunk her if you think she is wrong. Argue with her all day. That is fine.
What I am saying is this: when activists start saying “If you support this commentator, you cannot be my friend,” that is not principle. That is tribalism.
The same system that censors us loves that kind of split. The ruling class does not need to infiltrate movements if we are busy throwing each other out over podcast preferences.
Liberty people should not be recreating the left vs right, red vs blue, cable news food fight inside our own circles.
Activists eating their own, again
We have seen this before.
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Anti-war activists turned on each other over Trump.
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Libertarians split into camps that hate each other more than they hate the Fed.
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Now drug war critics are excommunicating people over whether they listen to Candace Owens while they roll a joint.
It is like the Fed playing Monopoly with real people’s lives, printing money and inflating everything, while we argue over who picked the dog piece.
If we cannot tolerate disagreement about commentators, how are we going to stand together against central banks, endless war, or mass surveillance?
Mass surveillance is like a nosy neighbor staring through your window all day, then swearing it is “for your safety.” The answer to that is not building smaller nosy neighborhoods inside the dissident world.
What I still hope from Barry
I am not asking Facebook to ban Barry. I am not calling for boycotts of Never Get Busted. I am not telling anyone to unsubscribe.
I am saying, as a guy who has backed him for more than a decade:
Barry, you were at your best when you trusted people with raw, uncut reality. When you let the camera roll and let viewers decide for themselves which cops were crooked.
You can disagree with Candace without turning your page into a purity test. You can say, “Here is where I think she is wrong,” without deleting respectful replies and cutting off friends who see value in her work.
And if I am wrong about any of this, leave my comments up and show people why. That is how honest investigation works.
Logic that cannot be questioned is not logic. It is faith.
I still respect a lot of what you have done since you left the badge. Kop Busters, Never Get Busted, your willingness to take heat from the state; all of that mattered, and still matters.
But because it mattered, it also matters when you start drifting toward the same control tactics we both claim to oppose.
I am not out to destroy you. I am out to defend the principle that got me supporting you in the first place:
Let people speak. Let evidence be debated. Stop treating disagreement like betrayal.
If we lose that, we lose the only thing that ever really scared the powers that be: free people thinking out loud together.
Sources
- Barry Cooper bio and Never Get Busted background:
- Candace Owens official platforms and bio:
- Meta / Facebook Community Standards:
- Critical analysis of Facebook standards and free expression:
- My history of supporting Barry Cooper's work
- December 8th 2008 on my facebook wall; https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=50971459501&id=790371788
- My xCannabis Youtube Channel, that sent 1,000,000+ views to Barry's cause starting 16+ years ago: https://www.youtube.com/@xcannabiscom/search?query=cooper
Screen shots of the comments that I thought might get deleted, since Barry was telling people like me, that he could not be friends with our ilk. (paraphrased)
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
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- Barry Cooper vs Ryan Thompson
Transcription of the deleted comments and screenshots
Comment 1: my long message to Barry on his post
Rich Garvey Banton
We had s converstion going here Barry Cooper which now no longer exists. Im sad about that. But I did sort of anticipate the loss some how here, when you announced that you couldn't be friends with anyone who supports Candcide Owens.Im suprised honestly that my first post here still remains.
I screen capped our whole conversation, incase it was lost. I hate spending time pouring my heart out, and writing a book of replies, to just see them evaporate.
I have been a SERIOUS fan and supportive of yours for 16 years.
This was the first video that I posted about your work, 16 years ago. I got 160,000 views. And since then I had other videos up that received more than half a million views. (not monetized, I did it for the service to humanity not the money)
Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOaoTE9xQM
I have always always always loved your work, because you question the answers, and you take action. You are a hero to me and so many.
I am sad to see you go on the offensive towards another truth seeker.
Candace is as much of a hero to me, as you Barry.
I have been with you through your ups and downs.
I have prayed for you in your times of weakness.
I have celebrated every victory that you have shared.
Im no enemy to you. I am a brother. I have considered myself as such.
I even moved to the Philippines because of your recommendation about finding a good partner in Filipina women.
Comment 2: defending Candace’s investigation
Rich Garvey Banton
Barry Cooper she is neither making an arrest or a conviction. In my opinion she is just doing an investigation in to her very good friend who was assassinated very publicly, tapping into the entire internet to assist with the investigationThis in not a police style investigation where the investigation is usually not a widely public investigation like this is
However some of the things Candace has made light of, has indeed gotten back to Kash Patel. And they have admitted it
Now the professionals are keeping things under their hat I mean we don't even have the autopsy yet.
But they are collecting data
And I truly believe Candace is helping
Barry’s reply to that:
Barry Cooper
Rich Garvey Banton You're determined to defend logical fallacies. That's a real problem.It doesn't matter if she's making an arrest or not. She's making claims to millions of people so she should be scrutinized like thousands of others are doing on X atm.
There is literally no way to argue that logic isn't right which is what you're doing so I'm going to politely end this conversation.
Peace.
Comment 3: my reply to “you’re determined to defend logical fallacies”
Rich Garvey Banton
“You're determined to defend logical fallacies”No, I just know how logic works. She is using logic.
She is NOT doing what you are claiming IMHO.
She is not saying “This is the way it is, believe me or else”
She is saying “this is an interesting piece of data, let's collectively research it”
And that is good logic.
And when she asked questions about why the camera behind Charlie was taken down, and what was on that camera. She and she alone, who had access to that person, reached out, reviewed the footage, and made a public statement, that there wasn't much to see there.
So she is not just stuck on stupid, making dogmatic claims that she won't relent from.
She is conducting a very public investigation, and unlike those who did the same thing in the JFK assassination/investigation, she is not going to be deterred by shame and innuendo.
Im glad ths is using logic. However, i think you are dipping into logical fallacy here about her character and portrayal of what she is doing here.
Just my opinion. Like I said, opinions are like assholes, we all have them, and they all stink.
Comment 4: listing specific fallacies
Rich Garvey Banton
I think a few logical fallacies to look up isAppeal to authority
“I am the true investigator, so believe me when I tell you what she is doing”
And these all apply to the logical (fallacy) you are using about her as well
Because while she is open to logic and reason, and admits when she is wrong. That is sort of the opposite of what you are claiming that she is doing.
ad hominem, straw man, slippery slope, false dilemma, appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, hasty generalization, and circular reasoning.
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