[clue-talk] The War On...?

[Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier]

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:26:22 -0700, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:47:32 -0700, Joe Zonker Brockmeier
> <xonker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Each person has to decide for themselves. The other key point to the
> > discussion is that you have to be willing to go to jail for your
> > beliefs. It's not about just disobeying laws you "don't like" -- it's
> > about being willing to stand up for your beliefs, even if it means
> > going to jail.
> 
> Yes, and many people are willing to cross that line.

Again, you're confusing people who break the law out of protest, and
people who just break the law.
 
> > You're confusing the law with the decision of the court. If a parent
> > is not awarded custody and they decide to violate the custodial
> > agreement, they're really protesting the decision, not the law -- in
> > your example, the parent would (probably) be fine with the law if the
> > decision had favored them.
> >
> 
> An extremely fine line.

Really? Explain. 
 
> > > The law allows police to haul off to jail groups of people who are
> > > blocking the streets and interfering with fire service, etc., just to
> > > get across their politically dissident viewpoints. Just think of the
> > > hordes that descended on the Republican convention (or the Economic
> > > Summit in Seattle) and afterwards screamed "police brutality." The law
> > > is clear. Is it a just law?
> >
> > Is it applied equally? Is it a law designed to protect public safety
> > or a law designed to curtail first amendment rights?
> 
> Probably not, but merely due to opportunity. It is extremely rare that
> citizens on the right side of the political spectrum take to the
> streets

I call B.S. -- There were demonstrations in favor of invading Iraq at
the same time people were protesting it. Do you think it's political
left-wingers protesting in front of Planned Parenthood?

It may be less common, but I'm not giving you "extremely rare." 

> There's where we disagree. I doubt that the police would be any more
> lenient if hundreds of right wing demonstrators blocked the streets in
> front of the DNC. I can't really support the in-your-face type of
> demonstration, nor do I believe that this type of demonstration is in
> any way comparable to the peaceful sitins used to promote the black
> cause during an earlier era. I have the right to stand up for my
> beliefs and to publish them in the forum of public opinion (that's
> what I'm doing now), but I'm not going to stand in the street with
> crude posters where I'm not wanted.

Actually, right wing demonstrators did protest the DNC in Boston, and
there were far fewer arrests than the RNC. When will you get tired of
being wrong, Collins?

Whether you "support" "in-your-face" protests is completely
irrelevant. People have the right to protest, and there's nothing in
the First Amendment that says they have to be polite about it. I
suppose you strongly oppose pro-life demonstrations as well?

Do you think that the black people protesting were sticking to areas
where they were wanted? The whole concept of a sit-in was to go
somewhere and occupy the area to get noticed, and usually arrested.

The entire point of protesting is to be noticed -- it does little good
for protesters to gather somewhere far away and sit quietly hoping
that someone, somewhere might notice. What this seems to boil down to
is that you don't agree with the message and you don't want your
little world disrupted by any messages you don't agree with.

There are limits. Protesters should not block emergency vehicles or
physically threaten people -- but I don't have a problem with
"in-your-face" demonstrators so long as they don't cross the line to
violence.
 
> > > There is always going to be a conflict between rule of law and those
> > > who would prefer not to be law abiding. Civil disobedience has to be
> > > tempered in a non-anarchic society.
> >
> > Ah, so now it has to be "tempered" -- previously, you staked out a
> > much more concrete position and said that it was "our duty" to obey
> > the law. Now it's "tempered." Which is it?
> 
> Yes, disobediance needs to be tempered.

So you're backing off of the previous "it's our duty" statement? 
 
> > You're also assuming that a protester does not wish to be "law
> > abiding" -- a person who breaks the law in protest is a different
> > situation than a person who breaks the law simply because they don't
> > care about the law.
> >
> 
> I'm not sure I agree.

I don't care whether you agree -- it's a simple fact. Take the nuns
who were sentenced to jail for protesting nuclear weapons:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0726-01.htm

They're hardly flagrant lawbreakers with no concern for being law
abiding. They simply broke the law to make a point. That's not the
same thing as someone who steals cars.
 
> >
> > I agree that laws are not meant to be broken lightly, and that it
> > would be a Bad Thing (TM) if people just decided that they didn't have
> > to follow any laws that they didn't like or found inconvenient -- but
> > that's a far cry from breaking a law out of civil disobediance when
> > one believes that a law is unjust.
> 
> I'm just saying that they will have the consequences.

No, that's not what you were saying. You were saying that we all have
"a duty" to be good little Americans and suffer under the laws until
we could get them changed through other means. No one was arguing that
there would be consequences for breaking the law. I never said that if
you break the law to protest that you shouldn't be jailed or punished.
The whole point is often to be sent to jail so that people see just
how unjust a law is.
 
> Yep, "something that's genuinely wrong." In this day and age, it's
> usually just political opinion. I genuinely believe, for example, than
> John Kerry was the wrong choice in the last election, but I would
> never travel to Chicago (?) to stand in the street, block traffic, and
> wave "Kerry sucks" posters or worse, and, if I did, I would expect the
> police to haul my ass off to jail and not too gently. I do my protests
> in the voting booth.

You're drifting, Collins -- The whole discussion is about breaking the
law when it's unjust. The question isn't whether Kerry or Bush is
"right" -- it's whether the protest laws themselves are unjust or
unjustly administered.

For example -- if I go to Chicago (it was Boston, actually... nice to
see you've done your homework...) and block traffic in the streets
waving signs supporting some pro-sports team after a sporting event,
am I going to be arrested? Most likely, no -- unless I'm being
violent. But, if I wave a "Bush is evil" sign and block traffic during
a national convention, I stand far better odds of being arrested.
There's something inherently wrong there.

If I'm going to have to sit in traffic and be late getting home, I'd
rather it be because people are exercising their First Amendment
rights to protest or support something rather than because a group of
drunken morons feel the need to stand in the street yelling "hooray
Broncos!" (Yes, they have the right to do that as well, though
political speech is supposed to enjoy stronger protection than other
kinds of speech...)
 
> It's still as I said earlier "something that's genuinely wrong" or
> "something that I don't like". And sometimes it's hard to know the
> difference.

Maybe. There are a lot of things I don't like, country music, reality
TV, Bill Gates... but I wouldn't go to jail to oppose them. There are
other things that I believe are genuinely wrong, (which I also don't
like) that I would be willing to go to jail to oppose.

Right or wrong, I have much more regard for people who have the
courage of their convictions and the will to suffer jail time or fines
in order to try to change things for the better than I do for people
who espouse the belief that we should all just be meek and quiet and
try to not rock the boat by breaking the law when we believe it to be
unjust.

I heartily disagree with the pro-life protesters who block abortion
clinics holding signs of aborted fetuses -- but I respect their
conviction and their willingness to try to change society. At least
they're willing to try to make things better (from their perspective)
rather than being passive and hoping that someday they might get to
vote on something to make the world better.

As I said before, if the Founding Fathers had taken your position,
we'd still be English subjects.

Zonker
-- 
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
xonker at gmail.com
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy
to state I finally won out over it." ~ Elwood P. Dowd, "Harvey"