Sometimes, yes, that is how you achieve it. And sometimes that’s part of how you change the law.
That’s what civil disobedience is. Sure, the approach often fails – and nearly always “fails” in the short-term – but it’s had some pretty damn impressive successes.
It’s doubtful she’ll serve the full time, and it’s what she was after. The sentence was handed down only after she had, “twice refused to pay fines and surcharges imposed by the court.” The judge in question felt that Flores wasn’t taking the law seriously, and decided that the time had come to put her in prison because she walking away from court imposed responsibilities. (She’ll break the law, but not pay for it.)
CIvil disobedience can be done several ways, for example Ghandi served two years in prison just for writing three articles. In this case, the action that led to the original OoP being issued was wanton stupidity.
In 2012, 15 people protesting (including Ms Flores), after being warned that blocking the gates was not legal, continued to do so on at least three occasions. That means they weren’t just there for free speech, they were there looking to get arrested in the name of an anti-war movement. No one is arresting people for simply speaking out against a war, so they crafted a situation that would get them arrested. Magically, it’s Vietnam all over again.
Now, this woman, one of 15 who were included in the original OoP, decided to go back to the one place which is defined in writing, by address, on the OoP. She went there so she could “just photograph” other people involved in a protest. Problem? It doesn’t matter what she was doing there! An OoP doesn’t say “come by if you’re dropping off chocolates”. She did what she did to get some more publicity, and because she is breaking the law, the judge doesn’t want her to get it without any punishment she’ll actually have to endure. It’s my understanding she’s the only one of the original 15 who has broken the OoP.
Would you be so quick to defend her if she was an ex-husband with a bad temper and a drinking problem who also failed to pay his child support, and happened to show up at his wife’s house just to get pictures of the kids? Because legally she’s the same, and if this judge just turned a blind eye to her continued poor legal behavior, and direct breaking of the OoP, the ex would have a better chance of arguing that the OoP his wife has against him doesn’t matter either.
Here’s an example of another person doing exactly what the anti-war group did in 2012. It’s just a way to get press. People pulling this stunt know full well that they will be arrested. In this case, Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala also blocked traffic, which is an illegal action during a protest. Watch the video.
This to me is part of the problem.
The law is being played and used for something that has nothing to do with what you are suggesting.
There is a huge difference between someone protesting the illegal use of drones, who uses quite normal protest tactics, blocking gates, disruption etc.
Yet the military feel like they are an abused spouse and need protection?
The law isn’t being played. You are.
Did you watch the video of the Green Party candidate?
In 2012, the military could have had the protestors arrested the very first time they blocked the gates. Instead they chose to warn them that blocking gates was illegal, and that they needed to protest in a location that wouldn’t block traffic. The protestors ignored them.
They continued to ignore the needs of the people trying to legally enter and exit the facility. They did it on at least three recorded occasions. It’s because of their own continued behavior, and unwillingness to work with the people at the base that the OoP was issued in 2012.
Not all OoP’s have to do with violence.
Similar OoP have been issued against protestors who have overstepped their bounds at abortion clinics by blocking traffic. I seriously wonder if we’d be having this conversation for one of them.
I am not saying that the military “feels like” an abused spouse. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying that law interprets both actions the same way, and to treat either differently in court makes the idea of an OoP weaker. Go look up precedent. You can’t apply the law to one person and fail to apply it to another. You have to apply it to people working at a military base who are dealing with civilians breaking the law as equally as you would apply it to a wife whose ex husband is breaking the law. It is just as wrong to fail to apply it to an abortion clinic or abused wife as it would be to fail to apply it here. The OoP was issued, and the woman has ignored it, and has on at least two occasions failed to pay court fines.
This seems to depend on the law. Certainly, we can agree there are exceptions. Slaves were right to defy laws against running away and literacy, gays and lesbians were right to defy laws against homosexuality, mixed-race couples were right to defy laws against race mixing, citizens of Texas are right to defy laws against having more than six dildos.
I realize you aren’t speaking to me, but I want to be clear on one point point: if you choose to defy a law, you should be prepared to pay the consequences, and it seems Ms Flores isn’t. Go look up Gandhi, and you’ll see that he willingly served his time whenever he was arrested for his actions. Ms Flores has already failed to pay fines and now seeks to overturn judgement on disobeying this OoP.
She wants to participate in acts of civil disobedience, but only if they hold no consequences. The truth is that these acts frequently do, and that she is going about her task in the wrong way.
When Gandhi was arrested for picking up salt, it was to oppose a Salt Tax. The law was specific to the action. He wasn’t trying to weaken an unrelated law that protects others.
I definitely agree with you that Ms. Flores is going about this in the wrong way. I agree with her position as strongly as I disagree with the clumsy way she’s gone about expressing it.
But, again, it really depends on the law and the consequences. Runaway slaves weren’t under any obligation to agree to be whipped or hobbled for trying to escape. Homosexuals would not have been wrong to try to avoid any consequences for breaking the laws that applied to them. Draft dodgers were perfectly justified in fleeing to Canada to avoid imprisonment.
Extreme cases aside, I agree Ms. Flores should have paid her fines for breaking laws unrelated to the change she seeks.
For me it’s a matter of who holds power and who is actually threatening violence, etc. I’m ambivalent about the abortion clinic case, but mostly because there haven’t been many recent bombings and shootings by protesters of clinic property and staff, and the clinic staff and backers aren’t themselves violent people. Peace protesting is a couple more decades beyond the pro-life folks in giving up on bombing and shooting. In this case, the original protection order was bogus and the judicial obligation should be to adjudicate rather than rubber-stamp the prosecutor’s case.
That said, the jail term is doing a decent job of bringing internet-attention to the protest. Probably the opposite of what the prosecutors want, unless the prosecutors are secretly giving the nun what she wants.
It sounds like she is being sent to prison as the end result of disobeying the court on a couple of previous occasions.
I wholly agree with the cause she’s trying to highlight - namely that drone strikes are a blunt and ineffective foreign policy tool, that serve to drive recruitment for enemies of the USA - though ultimately if she flouts the court orders (justly imposed or not) then she has to go to jail so that we uphold the rule of law.
I think on average we want restraining orders to be upheld and enforced. It’s a pity she wasn’t able to (or didn’t) challenge the restraining order placed on her, and instead chose to disobey the order altogether - at some point the consequences of doing that are inevitable.
Indeed. Earlier, I said that if I think a law is a fucking stupid law, or it’s being maliciously applied, I’d ignore it. I don’t, and I and I believe she doesn’t either, expect not to get nicked for it if caught. But I do think that complaining through the Correct Channels that it really isn’t fair, and can the Law look at this again, isn’t always as useful as just saying, ‘well fuck you’, and doing it anyway. And even if it is less effective, it’s what you have to do to be who you are.
This:
It’s one thing for justice to be blind, but all too often it’s selectively blind.
I totally support the creation of supposed double standards in opposition to systemic bias.
The examples you gave are of people directly opposing the law that affects them, and they cannot abide.
Runaway slaves ran away from their masters.
Homosexuals actually faced the the consequences of the laws pressed against them, and directly opposed them.
Here’s another one:
Rosa Parks sat in the middle of bus, in one of 10 seats reserved just for whites.
Ms Flores has not had her civil rights ignored. Instead, she and 14 other people broke the law repeatedly. As a result, an OoP order was legally issued against them. She was welcome to protest legally — until she broke the law at that location. She still could have gone other places to pursue her voice. Later, Ms Flores - after failing to observe other demands from the court on other issues - broke the OoP by returning to that location named directly on the OoP. (People travel cross-country to protest - but she chose to go to a location where she knew she was not legally allowed.) When she was tried, it was by a jury of her peers - 6 people - who found her guilty. The judge gave her a penal sentence because she had failed to pay when fines had previously been issued against her. She, and no one else, set this result up.
Notoriety is exactly what they want, and it’s a hollow victory if she fights this judgement. After all, the jail sentence is for a valid OoP received when she broke the law on multiple occasions. She should not be opposing a law other than the use of drones, and is ignoring what harm that action could have for others.
I already posted an second example (the Green Party candidate) of “sitting in the way of traffic” as a means to get yourself arrested. It’s a way to drum up news. The 2012 OoP story was news, and they’ll play this story for all they can as well.
The OoP was not bogus. It was provided because in 2012 the 15 protestors at the location had intentionally blocked the gates on multiple occasions. Fines (which Ms Flores clearly does not pay) were not an option to keep (shocker) — those protestors! — safe, and remove liability for any result of their legal misbehavior from the base. The OoP was provided to keep everyone safe and out of court. (OoPs are for people being “abused, harassed, or hurt” and it is harassment to block entry to a place of employment. While this was not the typical use of an OoP, it was a legal OoP. The protestors could have simply moved to a safer location, but chose not to do so knowing what would happen.)
In this case — it was decided by a jury. The judge only gave the sentence, and that was partially weighed by Ms Flores’ inability to pay previous fines.
You may not be pleased with that, but it’s true. You don’t have to agree with everyone’s politics to apply the law equally. If a protestor blocks the driveway at an abortion clinic, the same thing should (and sometimes even does) happen. The problem isn’t “why did it happen here?” but “why isn’t the law being fairly applied there?”.
Inequality is why SCOTUS is so very, very wrong in their recent decision about the abortion law in MA. They gave preferential treatment to those protestors — and I didn’t see you in that thread arguing on side of SCOTUS! That’s what you’re doing here. It seems to me that you want only this protestor, whose politics you approve of, to be given preferential treatment.
Tell me honestly, if this was a woman protesting at a clinic, who blocked clinic gates repeatedly, and then was given an OoP — would you be trying to argue against enforcement of the OoP?
I didn’t mean to imply that I was defending Flores’ actions. I was just responding to your statement:
…in that runaway slaves, homosexuals, draft dodgers, etc. had no obligation to “be prepared to pay the consequences” (imprisonment) for their actions, and indeed, did everything they could to avoid those consequences, and were completely justified in doing so.
So, while you and I agree regarding Flores, I was just taking issue with that one statement of yours. But yes, if you want to make a political statement by breaking a reasonable law, you should, indeed, be prepared to pay the consequences.
I think we were just speaking speaking past each other. I still defend that statement, and I’ll use your slave example to explain why.
Escaped slaves may have tried to avoid the specific law of ownership, but they were well aware of it, and did accept it existed if they got caught — and knew they would be punished for the attempt. Then some might run again, because they never accepted the concept of being owned. Those who ran repeatedly did know that their repeated escapes might ultimately mean death (because their value as slaves decreased each time they ran away). That still didn’t stop them from running.
What I said was, “if you choose to defy a law, you should be prepared to pay the consequences(.)” Slaves that ran did know the consequences, and even so they took the risk - sometimes multiple times with punishment. Homosexuals, draft dodgers, and Rosa Parks all did the same.
Even if you perceive a as law unreasonable, you need to understand that you still will be expected to obey it if the community believes it’s acceptable. So if you choose to commit an act of civil disobedience, you should only do so with the understanding that you may be expected to pay a penalty. After all, the community may not agree with your position, and breaking a law for an act of civil disobedience is still breaking the law.
Hope we’re cool!
If she fights and wins, it is actually a double victory - not only showing the unfairness of the System, but forcing it to admit its own unfairness.
The concept of restraining orders, so cherished by some here, is being cheapened by their abuse.
Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane
Jane plays with Willi, Willi is happy again
Suki plays with Leo, Sacha plays with Britt
Adolf builts a bonfire, Enrico plays with it
Sure. I would probably disobey/ignore someone (or everyone) who was alienating me from my inalienable rights, too.
Would you sit down and be oppressed, easily?
