[CrackMonkey] FUQ, slavery is back

[Seth David Schoen]

Random Feature writes:

> On Thu, 2002-01-31 at 11:55, Neale Pickett wrote:
> > So then, Praedor Tempus <praedor at arbornet.org> is all like:
> > > On Thu, 2002-01-31 at 10:23, Neale Pickett wrote:
> > >> So then, Overlord of Minnesota and Protector of the Dakotas
> > >>   <hick0142 at tc.umn.edu> is all like:
> > >> 
> > >> I guess you could call that a choice if you also view the Inquisition
> > >> as a great publicity move to offer folks to volunteer for
> > >> Christianity.
> > 
> > > If one is unwilling to fight for it (democracy, the Constitution, Bill
> > > of Rights) then one does not deserve it.  The draft was used in the
> > > Revolutionary War too.  The Founding Fathers, writers of the
> > > Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court (the ONLY proper
> > > and legal interpreters of the Constitution)...none see a problem with
> > > the draft.
> > 
> > That's completely irrelevant to my point.  The fact is that "go to war
> > or go to jail" is not what most people would consider much of a choice.
> 
> Freedom and social control - you have complete control over what the
> hell you want to do, as long as you're willing to pay the consequences
> if and when they arise. 
> 
> If it means enough to you, you'll pay the price. If you aren't willing
> to pay the price to stand up for what you believe in, you don't really
> believe in it and you're a hypocrite. 
> 
> I respect someone who's willing to go to jail rather than be drafted if
> they really believe the draft is wrong. Those who run away to avoid both
> situations are hypocrites. 
>  
> And hypocrites are the lowest form of maggot there is.

I have never understood the particular take on "civil disobedience"
which says that it's _important_ to subject yourself to punishments
for doing things you think are right.

There is the point that, if other people agree with your view, they
are much more galvanized, motivated, and inspired by the fact that you
suffer for your beliefs than they would be if you just practiced your
beliefs without also being punished for them.  If someone wanted to be
imprisoned, that person could certainly have a chance of using his or
her imprisonment to produce struggles and activism.  It was certainly
"productive" for the fight against the DMCA that Dmitry Sklyarov was
in jail (orders of magnitude more outcry and attention were thereby
produced against the DMCA than before).

But I'm completely lost on where the "cowardice" is in avoiding
persecution _that you think is real and genuine persecution_.  Not
everyone's desire is to make a point or to be a martyr; some people
just what to do what they believe in.  Does this mean that it's
_cowardly_ or _hypocritical_ for them to try to evade the punishments
others want to impose on them?

I don't see any more obligation to go to jail for evading the draft,
or for any other form of "civil disobedience", than I do for fugitive
slaves to surrender themselves, or for Marranos to give themselves up
to the Inquisition, lest they should be "hypocritical" in failing to
make martyrs of themselves to further expose and reveal to the world the
injustice of the Inquisition as it burns them at the stake for
violating the duly constituted laws of the sovereign church and state.

Martin Luther King was famous for talking about how people who broke
laws should expect to (or would attain or seem to attain more more
moral justification if they expected to) be punished, and that this
was necessary to promote respect for law, etc., etc.  That's all very
nice for people who are in the midst of a very public and organized
social struggle and who care to be activists and get to write letters
from jails and books about what it was like to be in jail or be beaten
or and essays about what the moral significance of having been
imprisoned for acting on conscience might be.  How about people whose
goal is just to act on their beliefs and, if such a thing were
possible, not suffer martyrdom for them?

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Reading is a right, not a feature!
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   |                 -- Kathryn Myronuk
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |