It's Called "Disobedience" for a Reason

Yesterday morning, following an overnight clash between protestors in the financial district of Boston and the Boston Police Department, the mayor of Boston, one Thomas Menino, called into a morning news show and offered this little gem:

"I will not tolerate civil disobedience in the city of Boston."

For real. The man said this. On television.

I had to go find a video of the incident, because for a few minutes I just couldn't believe someone could so grossly misunderstand both the level of disenchantment festering among the populace AND the nature of civil disobedience. But apparently, Mayor Menino can.

I don't speak for anyone but myself, so I'll not pontificate on the reasons for the massive Occupy Together encampments and marches that are happening all over the country. I could tell you my own reasons for desiring to protest, but that seems silly as I'm really a very lucky ducky when you get right down to it, as evidenced by the stories told in this blog.

So let's talk about civil disobedience. First of all, it's called disobedience for a reason, and that reason is that practitioners are disobeying. They are deliberately choosing not to follow certain laws or directives from authority as a means to call attention to an injustice or an issue or to make certain that their voices are heard.

From a moral perspective, it is always any person's right to refuse to follow a law or directive that is in opposition to their conscience. And from a legal and civil perspective, it is always the state's right to enforce laws and directives by using coersion to ensure compliance. When I tweeted about this yesterday, I got a lot of responses along the lines of "How dare he! It's our right!" which is technically true, but it's also true that he, as the executive of a duly constituted governmental unit, has the right to make sure that there are consequences for disobedience.

That's how a government, and a civil society, functions. We hand over certain powers to the state and the state uses those powers with equal distribution, meaning that the laws are applied the same to everyone.

(This is the ideal definition, by the by, and I am more than aware that human practice of ideals leads to human error in the application of principles. This, in a nutshell, is why protest ever happens at all: because some people feel that the civil contract has been violated by an unequitable application of agreed-upon principles. The more people feel that way, the more likely it is that protest becomes action and a new contract is formed. Cf.: Every revolution in history.)

So the position of nontolerance for civil disobedience is the only one that the mayor can take. It is his duty to enforce the laws, and if the laws include prohibitions on the occupation of public space, well, then.

But what is so tone-deaf about the statement is that Mayor Menino SAID IT OUT LOUD. It is as if this man either doesn't think people are smart enough to realize that civil disobedience is, in fact, disobedience and therefore has consequences, or that if he just sternly tells them to stop they will meekly walk away, crushed by the specter of Authority.

It is UNBEARABLY paternalistic.

The Occupy protestors, despite what you may have heard, are not stupid. They realize that by taking over public spaces in ways that are, in fact, expressly forbidden in municipal codes they are risking arrest. They are AWARE that what they're doing is civil disobedience, and they are aware what civil disobedience means. So you telling them that it "won't be tolerated" is silly. They know that. That is, in fact, THE WHOLE POINT.

And if you're trying to frighten them into backing down by saying something like "civil disobedience won't be tolerated" I have to just laugh. Because people that are willing to risk arrest and pepper spray and bodily harm to make their point about the laughable inequity of the current system, and the egregious ways in which our social contract has been violated and the need for a new one, aren't going to back down because you wag your finger at them and tell them there will be consequences.

Because you see, Mr. Mayor, the consequences of remaining silent and allowing the continued unequal application of our governing principles to flourish unchecked are far, far worse than anything you can threaten.