“Not entirely implausible” is nothing like “actually suggested by verifiable evidence”.
It sounds like the Colonel was using the Protective Order to administratively create a “Fee Speech Zone” at a certain distance from the base…
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Chilling effects. Bust a handful of leaders and the rest won’t be so eager to take their place anymore. Or, in case of smaller communities, you exhaust the supply of the leader cadres.
Like where, for example? Please suggest a place not prohibitively far away from the community in question - transportation incurs significant costs in both time and money.
Then why “military intelligence” is on so many lists of oxymorons?
Ummmmm… protesters, perhaps? Many many many protests against military take place near military bases.
Tell it to a testosterone-poisoned base officer who considers anybody opposed to military adventures to be a low creature known as “dirty hippie”. With a friendly judge, the alternative to just let things be becomes more and more tempting with each day. Then do a request, put the name of the protest leader on it, the judge ignores the “and others” part and goes conveniently after the named one. Thump, goes his hammer.
So, let’s protest at the most suitable locally relevant place - the military base!
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Perhaps the military does need protection from little old ladies… After all, an octogenarian nun penetrated one of the US’s most secure nuclear facilities.
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Sympathetic elderly white woman? Protests drone usage? Arrested for violating a Restraining Order obtained by a soldier?
Obviously the only answer is that she is a victim. Nothing else is even remotely imaginable, and is patently impossible. Old women who protest drone usage are physically incapable of the sorts of acts which could legitimately prompt a restraining order.
She couldn’t possibly have done something like repeatedly obstruct vehicles, or the operations of base personnel, or harassed or verbally assaulted same, or anything else that might reasonably result in a restraining order.
Why, the officer who requested the order has never met her and never spoken to her! So that obviously means she’s never blocked his vehicle, or yelled abuse at him or the soldiers under his command, or thrown rocks, or done anything else disruptive to the everyday operations of an active military base.
/sarcasm
Ask yourself just how much you’re letting your preconceived notions and biases influence your judgement.
If instead of a grandmother protesting drone usage at a military base, it was a businessman protesting tax hikes at City Hall, how would that change your opinion? Would you be so quick to believe the Restraining Order was issued wrongfully? What if it was a white supremacist, protesting suffrage for non-whites? Most people would instantly assume the Restraining Order was justified in that case.
It has been demonstrably proven time and again that people are unreasonably suspicious of those they disagree with or dislike, and unreasonably trusting of those of like mind, or who they sympathise with.
Like it or not, we all are prey to these biases. They’re the reason why black teenagers in hoodies aren’t trusted the way white adults in business clothes are. They’re irrational, destructive, and insidious. The only way to combat them is to be aware of them, and to actively work to counteract them.
Can you honestly say tell me that your biases are not influencing your judgements in this case? That your views are founded entirely on rational, verifiable evidence? Because I have yet to see such evidence, and I have withheld judgement. Meanwhile you have rendered judgement, but if you have evidence supporting it, you have withheld it.
I respectfully suggest this is a bit of a straw man. She is not an abusive spouse. The “victim” for whose protection the restraining order was issued declared under oath that he did not know her, nor did he feel threatened by her.
I beg your indulgence to answer a bit more general question, namely “Why should anyone make an extra-legal exception for any reason?”
- Because Law is not the same as Justice.
- Because history is rife with examples of horrible laws.
- Because peaceful Civil Disobedience has changed the world for the better.
- Because admitting that an individual of conscience may be doing something Good and Right to disobey a law, is not the same thing as a step down a slippery slope toward Anarchy.
Obviously, all of the above is just my opinion. I’m actually grateful to you for the opportunity to put these principles in writing. They’ve existed in my head for quite a while, but in rather nebulous form. Being challenged to declare them helped me to solidify them.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go write the lady a check.
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It has nothing to do with her being a grandma.
It has everything to do with an abuse of the legal system.
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This article is from when the Orders were first issued – it has copies of the Colonel’s request and a copy of an Order.
174th Attack Wing has order of protection from anti-drone peace activists | syracuse.com
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How about City Hall? How about at a local church, school, theatre, or other community center? How about places where you’re likely to find people whose you can convince of the rightness of your cause, and actually convince to help you get the laws changed through the collective will of the people? How about online, unfettered by the limitations of physical distance?
Heck, how about just 100 feet away further away from the gates and property of an active military base which is likely to be much farther away and harder to reach than almost anywhere else considering where most bases are located in relation to population centers? Ya know, so you don’t violate your Restraining Order, or interfere with base operations?
For the same reason “common sense” is so often considered uncommon - because people like to reduce incredibly complicated things like military logistics and human psychology to easily digestible snippets that are amusing or otherwise mildly memorable.
Protesters will protest there? Your tautologies are truly staggering. As is your skill at selective quotation and taking statements out of context. Consequently, I’m not even going to dignify this with further response.
If only the testosterone-posioned base officers, who consider anybody opposed to military adventures to be a low creature known as “dirty hippie”, would refrain from making such sweeping and insulting generalizations of entire swaths of people!
They could sure learn a thing or two from you and your utter lack of biases and prejudices! Too bad every last one of them is a moronic jarhead too stupid to understand your enlightened wisdom and too servile to think anything other than what they’re told - otherwise you could just tell them to cut it out!
How can someone reach the rank of Colonel and be such a wet blanket? You can feel him raging writing that statement.
He had to put up with so much, three times they did it! Three!
Good on the protestors.
.
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And those are the only instances under which a Restraining Order is permissible, hmm? You have to know and speak to someone to get a Restraining Order? Well gee, Peeping Toms will be glad to hear that!
Is it not conceiveable that a Restraining Order was issued for some other reason? Such as… I dunno… interfering with daily operations at a military base? Maybe stuff like blocking vehicle access? Or maybe verbally abusing base personnel? Possibly even something more serious like throwing rocks or damaging property? Stuff that is not at all unheard of at protests?
Ideally the law should be both mutable and understanding. There should be room for exceptions on a selective basis, and laws need to evolve and change to suit the needs of the people who live by them.
Extra-legal exception, by it’s very nature, is a dangerous thing. You need to have an overwhelmingly strong justification for operating outside of the law - because if we allow the law to be circumvented for anything but the most serious of reasons, we bring into question the reason for having laws in the first place.
How much justification is enough? How do you measure it? What if one group feels an extra-legal exception is justified, but another does not? How do you balance which to allow, and which to deny? Where would you even start with that?
The only way to fairly make decisions in those sorts of cases would be to apply a set of more or less universally agreed upon rules that everyone is subject to equally - which is what a system of law is.
No, if you’re going to take extra-legal actions, you need absolute, overwhelming, undeniable justification. If your justification is not iron-clad, to allow such extra-legal action is to invite calamity. The moment any substantial number of people dispute your justification, you are at risk of any action you take becoming grounds for others to take action which you dispute the justification of.
This is how civil wars start. Time and again, from disputes over the legal succession of a kingdom’s throne, to our own American dispute over the legality of seccession from the Union and the ownership of human beings as property in the form of slaves, history teaches us that when the rule of law is abandoned or circumvented, the result is violence and destruction.
An alleged abuse you’ve provided zero verifiable evidence of.
Next you’ll be telling me aliens really do exist!
Blocking vehicle access, nothing radical about that, used as a tactic by most protest groups in the free world. Hardly cause to be arrested, let alone charged, ridiculous to be imprisoned for it…
Verbally abusing base personnel? Need to grow tougher skin.
Throwing rocks? Yep happens, and to be honest, if the damage is minimal, no one hurt, just move along they will run out. Couple of thrown missiles a riot it does not make.
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Orders of restraint issued to people protesting. Persons going to prison for it.
I allege an abuse of the criminal justice system.
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From what I have read they are not blocking the road with bangin’ on the window theatrics as has been suggested in some comments, but rather with the good ol’ “die in” method of laying down on the road.
Inconvenient, yes, but threatening, no.
Even the district attorney trying the case, didn’t know where the base property line extended – assuming it was at the edge of the road, however it was later discovered that the line ran through the middle of the road. (it sounds like this might be the technicality that caused Mrs Flores to violate the Order).
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All sounds perfectly reasonable protest to me.
Looks like the authorities are simply incompetent to deal with it in any other way than remove and imprison.
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If I come to your house and block your driveway, I can be arrested and imprisoned. Why is it any different if a protester blocks a military base’s entry?
If I come verbally abuse you, I can be arrested and imprisoned. Why is it any different if a protester abuses military personnel?
If I throw rocks at you, and cause minimal damage to your property and you aren’t hurt, I can be arrested and imprisoned. Why is it any different if a protester throws rocks at military personnel and property?
You cannot expect the law to not apply simply because you don’t like the person or thing whom it protects, and sympathise with the person or thing breaking the law.
Yes, we know.
Now provide actual evidence to that effect. Here’s a hint - your personal suspicions aren’t actual evidence. Nor is the fact that you dislike or disagree with someone.
Yep, here’s another article which makes it clear that this was not an attempt to deal with protesters at large, but rather with Grady-Flores, who, “has twice refused to pay fines and surcharges imposed by the court.”
This is what the judge said about her behavior: “Noting that he saw incarceration as the only option to send a message, Gideon said a conditional discharge or probation would only allow Grady-Flores to “thumb her nose at the law once again.””
It should also be noted that it was jury, not a judge, that found her guilty. The judge was only responsible for delivering the sentencing. She was found guilty because she did show up on property where an order of protection said she couldn’t be. That’s why they other protestors were acquitted.
It’s probably bad form to pull-quote myself in a reply to someone else, but I’m going to do it anyway. The crux of our disagreement seems to center around this point.
I hold the above to be true.
I gather from the corpus of your posts in this and other threads that you consider the above to be false.
Fortunately, we don’t need to agree with each other 
But I’ll be sure to write the lady an extra check on your behalf 
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