Vile wrote:
] What's wrong with a little coercion?

You just got through ranting for a large run on paragraph about how you don't want these people using the great lawn in central park.

Coercion is the whole problem. I ought to be free to make my own choices. I ought to be free from coercion either by government or by radical group.

] You'd decry the Boston Tea Party if it happened today.

Of course I would. There is a significant difference between what was going on in the early 1770's and what is going on in the early 2000's. The difference is that we have elected representatives, and a right to freedom of speech.

In most cases what coercion means for these people is preventing others from meeting and preventing others from speaking. They seek to counteract rights that are far more important then their partisan politics. These people do not beleive in freedom of speech for their enemies. They are constantly infuriated that corporations like Nike can express a view on a political matter just like they can, and their rationalizations for that kind of thinking are a bottomless mush of self contradictory misunderstandings of what organizations are, what corporations are, and what rights are. The bottom line, when you cut through all the crap, is that they think rights apply only to people they like, and only when they want them to apply.

In the 1770's you had a forgien government which imposed its will on the domestic government for its own financial benefit. People did not have the ability to change the situation through a democratic process. They could not operate by changing minds and changing votes. The only option they had was to remove the forgien government by force. If thats legitimate, then other forms of coercive protest are legitmate as well.

But you can't get there unless you decide its reasonable to overthrow the government. Its not. These people could get what they wanted non-violently if they could convince a large enough segment of the population that they are right. They cannot because they are not. And they'll never understand that because radicals are not usually any good at thinking critically about their own side.

So they will continue to commit attrocious actions, and I will continue to be unimpressed with them, and unsympathetic when their asses end up in jail.

RE: FREEWAYBLOGGER.com - Free Speech: Use It or Lose It