I have read mixed reports about the incident at U.C. Davis, some stating that officers were breaking up a group “defending a tent city.” Little, however, leads me to conclude this particular group of seated students were themselves making any meaningful defense of a tent area so as to warrant this scale of force. Police outnumbered the seated group. Had they wanted to, officers could have easily gone around the students and proceeded to remove tents. So be it. The students would still have been within their right to assemble peacefully on public grounds.
However, this officer, to my best judgment, was making an example of them. What was the lesson, unintended or not? “We will hurt peaceful dissenters.” It is the larger-scaled version of a parent slapping his child in the mouth for not shutting up, whether or not the parent is right. The difference of course is that Uncle Sam is not our father, and We the People have been known to slap back when things like this happen too much. Have we forgotten the American Revolution or 1960’s race riots? It is better to give public forum to adverse opinions. Truth can stand on its own legs if it is given room to fight.
Let us dispense with off-handed generalizations about those who protest. “Occupy kids”—”ingrates”—”bums”. None of these pejoratives are helpful in the discussion of human rights or the ideas in question. Even so, those sprayed were students training to be professionals in the middle and upper classes. Is higher education no longer a valid contribution to society, even when its intended end entails mutual benefit through higher productivity and increased well-being? Calling these protestors “bums” and saying they ought to be at work is mere rhetoric. Who that has an higher education would not consider schooling a legitimate vocation during its necessary duration? Everyone who endures graduate studies knows it is more difficult “work” than flipping burgers. But who they are is of little import. The validity of the ideas in question must be weighed without regard for who holds or condemns them, unless we prefer genetic fallacies to good reason.
Some people support the rough handling of protestors because, “they are young, self-entitled punks and we’re tired of their whining.” Such statements are awfully presumptuous of particular people’s motives and display frightening willingness to sacrifice sacred rights on the altar of personal annoyance. We cannot deny the right of one group without denying the collective freedom of all. We cannot cheer police to rough up one group without empowering them to rough us up, too, when the time comes to take a stand. Police exist to preserve that right, not to suppress it when the majority becomes tired of particular views.
Thought experiment: imagine the students in the video were in fact Christians protesting a government crackdown on freedom of religion. Assume the actions were all the same: a small group of Christians sitting peacefully in a public area, surrounded and maced by police. Would the tactics of the officers be acceptable then? If not, why is it different in the case of those in the video? It is because we have allowed bigotry to influence our judgment.
One does not have to respect the ideas for which another peacefully protests, but to disrespect his or her right to hold and profess those beliefs is to jeopardize the rights of all free-thinking people. There is good reason for the very first amendment to the Constitution being the right to hold and openly assemble to profess beliefs without fear of harm or legal consequence. Historically, societies which justify at any level repression of peaceful dissent in public forums, stand just a hair’s breadth from totalitarianism.
Those who seek shelter from divergent opinions by hiding under the arm of ham-fisted governments may find themselves being pimped by that same political John of unlimited power. In such States, personal beliefs are determined not upon principle, but by the highest bidders and heaviest hands, and the welfare of individuals is something to be whored out. Those who look to government to legislate belief sell not only themselves, but society at large into bondage.
The masses do not generally accept change on the basis of principle, but only as a concession to the inevitable. They sail with the strongest wind. Everyone says, “change the world,” and when someone finally lifts a finger to do it, the rest pick up stones to stop him. As Dylan said, “everybody must get stoned.”
Remember, no one thinks himself under a dictatorship as long as he assents to the norms. Only when he differs does he learn the true limits of his freedom. The level of dissent which a government can peaceably tolerate determines the real quotient of freedom in a State.
PS: You probably have no idea how powerful OC spray is. This level of indiscriminate spray can kill a person with asthma. The officer who sprayed the students was UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike: (530) 752-3989 - japikeiii@ucdavis.edu
Occupy Objectivity: What to think when protests turn violent
I have not supported the OWS movement, but I have participated in other protests recently, including one outside of Fullerton PD, following the brutal murder of Kelley Thomas by police.
Don’t forget that supporting the right to peaceful assembly is more fundamentally American than frowning on “those Commie scum bags.” In considering protests, please remember…
Relative to political, economic, and cultural activities, I am no doubt American. I am also Christian, which informs how I carry out those rolls. But relative to the Church, as the spiritual institution of God’s heavenly Kingdom on earth, I am neither Greek, Jew, nor Scythian. I am not even American because “Christ is all, and in all.” I check my passport at the door of worship.
Regarding Col. 3:11
The relationship of the Church to the world, specifically as the formal community of saints, is that of a spiritual kingdom not distinctly tied to any earthly institutions of the common Kingdom.
It must be said emphatically that the Church long predated America, will long survive America, and at present should view America, the world’s lone superpower, as another “drop from a bucket” (Isa. 40:15).
The individual call to love one’s neighbor extends equally to benefit those who stand across ever-shifting lines of the map. Shall we justify silence and passivity in opposing evils committed by one Nation, because they further the interests of those geographically nearer to us? Ultimate principles of ethics are not spacial. The ten commandments are not annually redrafted with cartographer’s ink and morality bowes to no earthly King. I assert that justice travels more instant than light, and is the standard by which we ought to measure distance between ourselves and others.
Government oppression can occur anywhere. It is a problem inherent in the nature of man, and not an aspect of any one time or place, that he grasps after supreme power at the cost of individual liberties and well being. No heartland is secure from the darkest regions of man’s heart.
Votes Cast in Lead: The Necessity of Armed Peoples
Before addressing this sensitive issue, I would like to say that I am not enamored with violence or weapons. I don’t relish war scenes in movies, let alone in reality, because I cannot ignore the lasting, painful costs of it. While I would in certain instances fight for lives and beliefs dearest to me, yet I speak as one who personally handed his knife to muggers because I thought a peaceful approach would better suit my intentions to share the gospel with them. So then, it is not for any supposed glory or backwoods traditions, or even for a hot head that I advocate civil arms ownership. That being said…
The magnum reason why all free peoples ought to own firearms, let alone possess the right, is not to deter small-time robbers, but to thwart the tyrannical tendencies of government. Those in power rarely share the populist ideals of the masses. History demonstrates time and again that many will overstep their elected powers to abuse defenseless people. Thus, an unarmed populace is composed not of citizens, but of subjects, because the ultimate vote of self-representation must be cast, not in paper—but lead.
The magnum reason why all free peoples ought to own firearms, let alone possess the right, is not to deter small-time robbers, but to thwart the tyrannical tendencies of government. Those in power rarely share the populist ideals of the masses. History demonstrates time and again that many will overstep their elected powers to abuse defenseless people. Thus, an unarmed populace is composed not of citizens, but of subjects, because the ultimate vote of self-representation must be cast, not in paper—but lead.
To Whom Do We Owe This Allegiance?
Here is a question to ponder. What is the basis by which children are expected to hold their hands over their hearts and pledge allegiance to a flag, that is, to surrender their services and selves even to the point of death, to any particular Country, before they are of age to understand the nature of that government which asks it? Was not the oath many of us took from childhood meant to bind us to the interests of the State before we even knew its intent? What then was our reason for swearing to this costly commitment, other than the seeming caprice of birth in that location? For surely we had not yet estimated the worthiness of this particular government above hundreds of others.
