Tag Archives: Civil disobedience

Civil Disobedience vs. Lawful Protest

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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Note that the law states that we have the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Peaceably assembling does not include blocking law enforcement from doing their job. Americans also have the right to petition the government. We also have the right to un-elect the people making laws we don’t like. We don’t have the right to break the law to make our point.

Civil disobedience has been part of American history from the beginning. However, those choosing to engage in civil disobedience should be ready to pay a price for their actions. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in jail in 1963 for protesting segregation. He was right, but he was still in jail. I know many people who went to jail during the peak of the right-to-life movement. I believe they were right, but they also went to jail. If you are willing to engage in civil disobedience, you need to be prepared to suffer the consequences. If you attempt to run over an officer of the law, you need to understand that your actions will have consequences.

There is an argument out there that illegal immigration is not a major crime. However, if someone comes here illegally, do you expect them to respect the other laws of the country? How many people here illegally are working without having money withheld from their wages (as Americans do) and sending that money back home? That’s another law being broken.

The Center for Immigration Studies reports that:

About 54 percent of Somali-headed households in Minnesota receive food stamps, and 73 percent of Somali households have at least one member on Medicaid. The comparable figures for native households are 7 percent and 18 percent.

This is not sustainable.

It’s time to let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) do their job and send people who are here illegally back to their home countries. We also need to fix our immigration protocol so that they can apply to come here legally. We can’t turn the countries they are fleeing into functioning republics, but we can encourage the people coming here illegally to work toward creating a more successful country where they live.

Protesting Is Legal; Civil Disobedience Should Have Consequences

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On April 16th, Townhall posted an article illustrating how the pro-Palestinian protestors that tried to block roads on Monday were treated in Florida.

The article reports:

Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down major bridges, roads, and highways across the United States on Monday, with CNN reporting that over 150 arrests were made. But whether in Chicago, where demonstrators blocked a road to Terminal 1 at O’Hare, or in San Francisco, where protesters brought traffic to a halt on the Golden Gate bridge, there was generally tolerance of the disruptive and dangerous demonstrations by those tasked with upholding law and order.

…Traffic was also affected in two other areas in the Bay area by the protesters, with California Highway Patrol Chief Don Goodbrand saying “it was an orchestrated event.” 

“They blocked three separate locations on freeways. They prevented law enforcement, paramedics, ambulances from getting to their points of destination,” he added. 

The article includes a screenshot of how these protestors were treated in Florida (this is the address if you want to watch the video–  https://twitter.com/i/status/1779976321629565433):

Protesting is legal under the First Amendment; blocking roads and bridges is not.

 

American Ingenuity At Work!

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The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday about a very unique church service.

The article reports:

In footage of two instances that went viral on Thursday and Friday, Christians gathered in the government-approved venues of a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart and a Las Vegas casino to engage in the worship that authorities have deemed non-essential.

In a Thursday tweet that was retweeted by Vice President Mike Pence, Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed posted footage of a worship service in a Vegas casino, writing, “Packed house at #EvangelicalsForTrump prayer & praise event in Las Vegas. NV Governor banned church services but casinos can operate at 50% capacity. So we are praying in a casino.”

…According to The Post Millennial, a similar event also took place recently in the grocery section of a Wal-Mart in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, a town near Pittsburgh. In April, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe urged churchgoers to find different ways to practice their religion than gathering in churches. “Religious leaders are encouraged to find alternatives to in-person gatherings and to avoid endangering their congregants,” he advised. “Individuals should not gather in religious buildings or homes for services or celebrations until the stay-at-home order is lifted.”

Wolf took flak when he broke his own state’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions in June by marching in solidarity with hundreds of protesters in Harrisburg following the death of George Floyd. In Harrisburg’s Dauphin County, gatherings were restricted to 25 people or fewer at the time, according to Pennsylvania’s color-coded reopening plan.

The article concludes:

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the tension between civil and ecclesiastical authorities nearly to the breaking point in states such as California, where many congregations are defying Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July 13 order that re-instated lockdowns for churches and other establishments deemed non-essential by state authorities.

This week, Ventura County sued Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, California, for holding no-mask, no-distance indoor services. Rob McCoy, its senior pastor, said, “We would be the first to be masked and distanced, and willingly so, if this were meriting it, and it doesn’t. This isn’t a health issue, it’s an ideological issue.”

Grace Community Church, a congregation in Los Angeles pastored by prominent author and theologian John McArthur, also made headlines last month when he and the church elders penned an extensive statement explaining why they believe the secular government did not have legitimate authority to forbid in-person assembly indefinitely.

Explaining how they complied with state mandates at first, the church leaders justified their civil disobedience in part by claiming that the lockdowns done in the name of public health were causing spiritual damage to their parishioners. “Opportunities for believers to serve and minister to one another have been missed,” they wrote. “And the suffering of Christians who are troubled, fearful, distressed, infirm, or otherwise in urgent need of fellowship and encouragement has been magnified beyond anything that could reasonably be considered just or necessary.”

We need to be very careful not to give up our civil liberties in the name of preventing the spread of a virus. We know a lot more about the coronavirus now than we did at the beginning. We have developed a few successful protocols for treating the virus, and we have a fairly good idea of who is at risk from the virus. It is time to reclaim our civil liberties before we lose them for good.

Why Is The Attorney General At A Rally That Encourages Civil (Or Uncivil) Disobedience ?

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Today’s Washington Examiner reports that Eric Holder spoke at a rally held by Al Sharpton for Trayvon Martin.

The article reports:

“If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action,” Holder added. “And, at every step, the facts and the law will guide us forward,” he added.

Al Sharpton, Holder’s host, has called for an “escalation” in civil disobedience if George Zimmerman — the shooter in the Trayvon Martin case who said he acted in self-defense — is not arrested.

Why is the Attorney General taking part in a rally that has determined the verdict of a case that has not even been tried and encouraging civil disobedience? Isn’t it the Attorney General’s job to uphold the law? The law says that George Zimmerman is innocent until proven guilty. If the people closest to the crime have chosen not to arrest Mr. Zimmerman, why is the Attorney General attending a rally to encourage civil disobedience to change that?

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Somehow I Think The Unions Have Lost Their Way

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If you belong to a union, I am sure that you are grateful for the job protection and voice that the union gives you. I am sure you appreciate the benefits your union has bargained for and won for you. But have you ever thought about the seamy side of unions?

On Monday the Washington Examiner posted the following:

Something questionable is going on when a state chapter of the Service Employees International Union advertises on the SEIU national website a “Lead Internal Organizer/Home Care (LiA)” position paying up to $65,000 a year for somebody with the following qualifications:

• Train and lead members in non-violent civil disobedience, such as occupying state buildings and banks, and peaceful resistance.

The article lists some of the other qualifications. It does talk about planning takeovers of capitols and banks.

The article further reports:

…what SEIU is looking for is somebody who has no qualms about joining with other union-trained cadres and like-minded people from other organizations to invade government buildings such as state buildings and private banks — and getting arrested (“peaceful resistance”) in the process. We’ve already seen the kind of thuggery SEIU has in mind. Remember two years ago when 14 busloads of leftist demonstrators from SEIU, National Peoples’ Action, MoveOn.org, and other activist groups converged on the private home of a bank executive in the Maryland suburbs of the nation’s capital?
 
It seems as if the unions have forgotten what their original purpose was.
 
The article relates the story of the union convergence on the private home of a bank executive in Maryland. It is worth reading for the report on the incident. I personally encountered a political example of union thuggery during a primary election debate for a Massachusetts seat in the House of Representatives. One of the candidates in the debate was supported by local unions. Union thugs showed up early for the debate and blocked off the parking lot from supporters of the other candidates. They then proceeded to line up in an intimidating manner in front of the doors leading to the debate hall. This was followed by a series of actions designed to create an incident that would be covered by the press. The funny thing about the whole exercise was that the audience in the debate was generally over the age of fifty and not likely to respond to the taunting and intimidation.
 
However, there are enough examples of union thuggery in recent years to cause us to rethink the role (and the amount of money involved) of unions in our society.
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I Realize That I Am Old-fashioned, But What Is This ?

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This is the resources web page for the “US Day of Rage” which intends to occupy Wall Street on September 17. According to the Business Insider website, the Day of Rage is supposed to be a day of non-violent civil disobedience orchestrated by such people as Stephen Lerner (Service Employees International Union – SEIU) and Association for Community Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke. The resources web page gives some instructions on how to nonviolently commit civil disobedience, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there will be violence and destruction of property.

The article at Business Insider reports:

Now, the US Day of Rage protests, staged by a collective of activist groups allegedly in conjunction with Lerner and Rathke, are planning the actual “occupation” of Wall Street September 17, complete with a tent city set smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan’s financial district. Similar protests are purportedly set to take place across the nation — and even world– at the same time. Some Day of Rage organizers are even calling on activists to squat in Manhattan’s financial district for months.

What is the world are these people trying to accomplish? Wall Street did not cause our financial difficulties–the government did! When the government began pressuring banks to make more risky loans, the real estate bubble began. Wall Street traded the paper because they had to in order to remain in business.
The article further reports:

The aim, according to Lerner, is to “destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.”

“How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to, to be rich?” Lerner asked rhetorically in March.

It really does no good to interfere with the ability of the rich to be rich. Generally speaking, rich people hire people–if they are not hiring people to run a business they own, they are hiring people to clean their houses and mow their lawns. Rich people provide jobs. If you interfere with the ability of rich people to earn money, you interfere with the middle class’s opportunity to earn money. You are cutting your own throat.

I fear that September 17 will bring the kind of riots we saw happening recently in England. This is not a healthy thing. It can’t be stopped because protest is legal in a free society. I just hope that the amount of damage to people and property is kept to a minimum.


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