aequalsa

Yes I watched the entire thing. If the people doing it have no right (have not been granted permission to demonstrate - it does not matter what sort of demonstration) to do it in the first place then the possibility or not of someone getting hurt is absolutely and entirely irrelevant. As it was, the idea was for there to be a flash mob. You know what that entails, a bunch of people performing a dance or what have you. With a number of people dancing like that there certainly is a possibility of someone being hurt and therefore there is a responsibility on the part of the security guards to prevent it.



Wrong. The security officer approached the people and told them that if they demonstrated without a permit they would be arrested. There is warning # 1, and any violation from that point onward is a direct violation of the orders they were given by those responsible to ensure the safety and security of EVERYONE visiting that memorial that day. The police were obviously informed that something was going to go on, probably because the person who had the idea to do this announced it on the internet or on his radio program or something.

At the 1 minute mark the two people who were later arrested for slow dancing walk into the frame from the direction where the police officer was explaining the repercussions -the girl was close enough to touch the person standing on the right side of the frame as she walked out. They look directly at the police officer and the camera smiling and begin to dance that is called provocation, and again is in direct opposition to the orders they were just given by those responsible for the safety and security of everyone in the memorial.



No, not doing anything would be an abdication of their responsibility to ensure the peaceful use of a national monument to EVERYONE and not let a bunch of people disrupt others use and enjoyment of that public facility.



At 2:35 one person was complying when his friend comes in and starts pulling him away the officer is then forced to take the original man down to the ground to control the situation and he then begins telling the other man to "Sir, back of, back off"

At 2:48 the man with the brown shirt who had been pulling on the other one is on the ground and the police officer is trying to handcuff him. You can see him resisting putting his hands behind his back in spite of being ordered to do so. The police then escalate as they are trained and have every right to do in the completion of their duties.

At 3:03 the guy in the white shirt walking away from and pulling away from the officer is resisting.



Actually in my opinion the police were doing exactly what they have been trained to do. I'm not a cop but I have had to deal with similar situations and the police handled themselves well in the most part.


As much as you may believe that being arrested for dancing is stupid you should realize that they were not arrested for dancing but for demonstrating without permission. The rest is emotional sensationalism.



I bet that if they had planned to do this flash mob in the middle of a field on the national mall then they would not have been stopped but they planned to do it in an enclosed space in a public memorial without permission.

It doesn't matter how stupid you think it is there is a correct way and an incorrect way of changing the law.

If I decided that drug laws were stupid (which they are) and I planned to get 100 of my best dope-fiend friends to do lines of coke on the white house lawn would you still claim that we were arrested for no reason and that it was just stupid?

Yes I do. There is NO ACTUAL LAW. It was an arbitrary judge ruling extended arbitrarily. Why is the judge being appointed god-like authority in this instance when we are well aware of, and can point to numerous, numerous instances of where they have made grossly unethical or unlawful rulings?

From an earlier post:



To answer the earlier question, I am upset becaues it seems like Objectivists sometimes care about the constitution as much as the liberals do. Regardless of whatever else happened, they were required by law to state which law they were violating that justified the action that was about the be taken, and they refused to do this multiple times.

I would also like to see a proper refutation of what Louie said, of which CapitalistSwine quoted in his last post. I think this is a key element of this and I won't be satisfied with the position of the others here until a good answer is given on that point. It graetly disturbs me how often Objectivists seem to want to justify the governments actions whenever crack downs happen, or with the New York Mosque (when clearly, according to our laws, nothing could be done at that time) because it fits their own little wishes, but then they condemn to the highest order almost everything else the government does, it's almost like some Objectivists have an inner power-trip that gets set off when these things happen. I just don't get it, and it is frustrating.

I'd agree, but I didn't see them do anything to make that case. They seemed to walk onto government property just to say, "your not the boss of me." If he uses it as a platform to make a real philosophical case I'll give him more credit for that.


It is a kind of property though. It is government owned property which would exist, at least in the form of courtrooms, military bases and police stations even in an Objectivist utopia. There is no right to dance in a courtroom, or a police station if those who manage it ask you not to. It is the same case here. You could make a case that the government should not own any memorials but they seem to be implying that because it's "public property" and they are members of the public, they have some sort of right to it.

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

I'd agree, but I didn't see them do anything to make that case. They seemed to walk onto government property just to say, "your not the boss of me." If he uses it as a platform to make a real philosophical case I'll give him more credit for that.


It is a kind of property though. It is government owned property which would exist, at least in the form of courtrooms, military bases and police stations even in an Objectivist utopia. There is no right to dance in a courtroom, or a police station if those who manage it ask you not to. It is the same case here. You could make a case that the government should not own any memorials but they seem to be implying that because it's "public property" and they are members of the public, they have some sort of right to it.

I have no idea why you are so heated and insist on attacking my character, which, I'd like to add, you know almost nothing about. I brought up my personal achievements because you accused me(for no reason at all) of watching sponge bob and being apathetic from my arm chair. That you insist that the only way someone can effect change is through direct political contact tells me that you in no way understand my position.

In short, I believe in regards to this issue that
1)without the rule of law, freedom cannot exist.
2)That political change is impossible and never permanent if not accompanied and further, proceeded by a change in the philosophical outlook of the people.
3) That no political system, enacted, could be perfect in its application of the law.
4)That redundancy is and ought to be built into our legal system to minimize harm when mistakes are made by human authorities.
5)The US is not yet at the point where violent resistance is appropriate. That is to say, peaceful alterations of our government are still possible.
6)There has been a consistent and gradual slide towards statism since the civil war that has not been halted by decades of demonstrations.
7)That this was a planned political demonstration by Adam which he chose to do on government property without a permit.
8)That government property has to be treated like private property or it becomes a floating abstraction with all kinds of "commons" problems.

Those are my premises. If you would like to discuss why they are wrong, I'd be happy to, but if you just want to call me an enemy of freedom and a cartoon watcher then I don't care to continue.

Cheers

No, no, no. A police officer does not get to decide what laws are just or unjust. He is sworn to do his duty in upholding the laws of the land and that means that he is supposed to be absolutely and completely impartial as to the efficacy, legitimacy or application of any and all laws.

You are confusing the role of police officer with the role of legislators and the courts who's job it is to ensure laws enacted are just.

Do you have all the necessary facts to determine that? Don't we appoint judges and/or select juries for the purpose of determining whether laws were broken or not?

I have no idea why you are so heated and insist on attacking my character, which, I'd like to add, you know almost nothing about. I brought up my personal achievements because you accused me(for no reason at all) of watching sponge bob and being apathetic from my arm chair. That you insist that the only way someone can effect change is through direct political contact tells me that you in no way understand my position.

In short, I believe in regards to this issue that
1)without the rule of law, freedom cannot exist.
2)That political change is impossible and never permanent if not accompanied and further, proceeded by a change in the philosophical outlook of the people.
3) That no political system, enacted, could be perfect in its application of the law.
4)That redundancy is and ought to be built into our legal system to minimize harm when mistakes are made by human authorities.
5)The US is not yet at the point where violent resistance is appropriate. That is to say, peaceful alterations of our government are still possible.
6)There has been a consistent and gradual slide towards statism since the civil war that has not been halted by decades of demonstrations.
7)That this was a planned political demonstration by Adam which he chose to do on government property without a permit.
8)That government property has to be treated like private property or it becomes a floating abstraction with all kinds of "commons" problems.

Those are my premises. If you would like to discuss why they are wrong, I'd be happy to, but if you just want to call me an enemy of freedom and a cartoon watcher then I don't care to continue.

Cheers

I have no idea why you are so heated and insist on attacking my character, which, I'd like to add, you know almost nothing about. I brought up my personal achievements because you accused me(for no reason at all) of watching sponge bob and being apathetic from my arm chair. That you insist that the only way someone can effect change is through direct political contact tells me that you in no way understand my position.

In short, I believe in regards to this issue that
1)without the rule of law, freedom cannot exist.
2)That political change is impossible and never permanent if not accompanied and further, proceeded by a change in the philosophical outlook of the people.
3) That no political system, enacted, could be perfect in its application of the law.
4)That redundancy is and ought to be built into our legal system to minimize harm when mistakes are made by human authorities.
5)The US is not yet at the point where violent resistance is appropriate. That is to say, peaceful alterations of our government are still possible.
6)There has been a consistent and gradual slide towards statism since the civil war that has not been halted by decades of demonstrations.
7)That this was a planned political demonstration by Adam which he chose to do on government property without a permit.
8)That government property has to be treated like private property or it becomes a floating abstraction with all kinds of "commons" problems.

Those are my premises. If you would like to discuss why they are wrong, I'd be happy to, but if you just want to call me an enemy of freedom and a cartoon watcher then I don't care to continue.

Cheers

You make a good point and I would agree that if someone were experiencing a disvalue acting against the law with the realization that you might go to jail could be a reasonable risk one might take. This wasn't the case here though. It was a small, though deliberately organized demonstration to break the law as a way of making a political argument against the government's particular method of managing its facilities.


We have the right to disagree but we are not co-owners of government property. we are citizens who elect representative that, among other things, write regulations for how the governments property shall be used.

I did not intend anarchist to be a pejorative but rather one possible description for this action. The other being that the battle was poorly picked. I just do not see this as indicative of a police state. Forcing me to by health insurance? Forcing me to sell my house to wal-mart through eminent domain? These yes. But doing whatever I want on property that's not mine? Kind of a stretch for me.


The original dancer was not, but I think it was pretty clearly a demonstration that they thought that dancing should be allowed. People didn't just happen to be dancing there and it was on the heels of another event.



That's where our difference of opinion lies. I and apparently the courts don't see the right to regulate their own property as arbitrary. The only way it becomes that is if you buy into this leftist notion of public property where it is something that all citizens have a right to. It doesn't exist. You can't build a house in the middle of a national park. walk into area 51(or any military installation really) or, apparently, dance at the Jefferson memorial. Once ownership of property is transferred to government then anything that you can do there is by privilege and not by right because it is theirs. I agree that it should not be theirs, but that isn't what they are arguing, as far as I can tell.

They seem to be accepting the premise that the government owns the property but that they have no authority to regulate it as they see fit since it's "public.".

You sort of answered your own question. The issue probably won't ever come up again. I could list 30 things off the top of my head that people could better spend their time on than this. Even best, best case scenario...get an amendment added to the Constitution which expressly allows dancing at the Jefferson Memorial...so what? I still have to give away 1/2 of my money each year...airwaves are still granted by government charter.

In all actuality though, there probably isn't even a rule about dancing there. The rule is probably that security can take what steps they feel that they need to ensure the safety of the grounds and the visitors and staff. Best case scenario, you could have the sergeant reprimanded for over reacting. But even that is unlikely since the officers were incredibly restrained. Leaving out firearms, clubs, and tazers, all of the martial applications were entirely non-ballistic, restraining techniques. The gentle chokes, take downs, all of it. They could not have been more gentle.

And to save you(Jennifer, not Eiuol) the trouble of another ad hominem, I've studied martial arts for the better part of 14 years, mostly self defense applications. You know...in between episodes of Spongebob.

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

You make a good point and I would agree that if someone were experiencing a disvalue acting against the law with the realization that you might go to jail could be a reasonable risk one might take. This wasn't the case here though. It was a small, though deliberately organized demonstration to break the law as a way of making a political argument against the government's particular method of managing its facilities.


We have the right to disagree but we are not co-owners of government property. we are citizens who elect representative that, among other things, write regulations for how the governments property shall be used.

I did not intend anarchist to be a pejorative but rather one possible description for this action. The other being that the battle was poorly picked. I just do not see this as indicative of a police state. Forcing me to by health insurance? Forcing me to sell my house to wal-mart through eminent domain? These yes. But doing whatever I want on property that's not mine? Kind of a stretch for me.


The original dancer was not, but I think it was pretty clearly a demonstration that they thought that dancing should be allowed. People didn't just happen to be dancing there and it was on the heels of another event.



That's where our difference of opinion lies. I and apparently the courts don't see the right to regulate their own property as arbitrary. The only way it becomes that is if you buy into this leftist notion of public property where it is something that all citizens have a right to. It doesn't exist. You can't build a house in the middle of a national park. walk into area 51(or any military installation really) or, apparently, dance at the Jefferson memorial. Once ownership of property is transferred to government then anything that you can do there is by privilege and not by right because it is theirs. I agree that it should not be theirs, but that isn't what they are arguing, as far as I can tell.

They seem to be accepting the premise that the government owns the property but that they have no authority to regulate it as they see fit since it's "public.".

I have no idea why you are so heated and insist on attacking my character, which, I'd like to add, you know almost nothing about. I brought up my personal achievements because you accused me(for no reason at all) of watching sponge bob and being apathetic from my arm chair. That you insist that the only way someone can effect change is through direct political contact tells me that you in no way understand my position.

In short, I believe in regards to this issue that
1)without the rule of law, freedom cannot exist.
2)That political change is impossible and never permanent if not accompanied and further, proceeded by a change in the philosophical outlook of the people.
3) That no political system, enacted, could be perfect in its application of the law.
4)That redundancy is and ought to be built into our legal system to minimize harm when mistakes are made by human authorities.
5)The US is not yet at the point where violent resistance is appropriate. That is to say, peaceful alterations of our government are still possible.
6)There has been a consistent and gradual slide towards statism since the civil war that has not been halted by decades of demonstrations.
7)That this was a planned political demonstration by Adam which he chose to do on government property without a permit.
8)That government property has to be treated like private property or it becomes a floating abstraction with all kinds of "commons" problems.

Those are my premises. If you would like to discuss why they are wrong, I'd be happy to, but if you just want to call me an enemy of freedom and a cartoon watcher then I don't care to continue.

Cheers

I have no idea why you are so heated and insist on attacking my character, which, I'd like to add, you know almost nothing about. I brought up my personal achievements because you accused me(for no reason at all) of watching sponge bob and being apathetic from my arm chair. That you insist that the only way someone can effect change is through direct political contact tells me that you in no way understand my position.

In short, I believe in regards to this issue that
1)without the rule of law, freedom cannot exist.
2)That political change is impossible and never permanent if not accompanied and further, proceeded by a change in the philosophical outlook of the people.
3) That no political system, enacted, could be perfect in its application of the law.
4)That redundancy is and ought to be built into our legal system to minimize harm when mistakes are made by human authorities.
5)The US is not yet at the point where violent resistance is appropriate. That is to say, peaceful alterations of our government are still possible.
6)There has been a consistent and gradual slide towards statism since the civil war that has not been halted by decades of demonstrations.
7)That this was a planned political demonstration by Adam which he chose to do on government property without a permit.
8)That government property has to be treated like private property or it becomes a floating abstraction with all kinds of "commons" problems.

Those are my premises. If you would like to discuss why they are wrong, I'd be happy to, but if you just want to call me an enemy of freedom and a cartoon watcher then I don't care to continue.

Cheers

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

If employing strawmen and ignoring gigantic swathes of history that seem to strongly suggest you are anything but not completely wrong on this point is how you are going to attempt to teach children how to thing critically then you have already failed them miserably.




They broke no law.



Jefferson was one of the greatest activists for freedom. The ones who weren't respecting the memorial were the cops, causing a huge ruckus and disturbing the peace. There was no need to ensure "safety" or "security" until they decided to get involved. You can clearly see at the beginning of the video that no one touring the memorial is even giving these people a second thought. This is the same bullshit argument that resulted in things like the Patriot Act. So if a cop tells you to stop doing something that isn't illegal, and you don't, and then you "taunt" them, that's a crime? How is this not the definition of a police state styled-event? How is this not morally evil?

I also find it interesting that the fact you learned martial arts, whatever was going on with your sister, and all of that other crap has any relevance at all. I don't care about your personal achievements and experiences, I was talking about condemning political actions that, historically, have had numerous successes with respect to these types of things, whilst you are not assisting in bringing about political change in any sense.



I have an uncle that is part of SWAT, I have a cousin that is a police officer, and I have a family friend that is part of security for national park and memorial grounds in D.C., i.e. the area of jurisdiction that this memorial falls under. Interesting that every single one of these people seems to think that this was poorly handled, that these officers were out of line, and that they had no right to proceed in the way they did considering they broke the law by violating numerous Constitutional rights provided to all citizens, such as being told specifically what law you are being reprimanded for breaking.

With friends of freedom like you, we sure as hell don't need any enemies.

I'm not clear what it was they were protesting. If they were protesting against the requirement of getting a permit to protest on government owned property then they're either anarchists or poor at picking important battles. Either way, it seems a little immature and undeserving of pity. Was their a real cause that I missed?

You sort of answered your own question. The issue probably won't ever come up again. I could list 30 things off the top of my head that people could better spend their time on than this. Even best, best case scenario...get an amendment added to the Constitution which expressly allows dancing at the Jefferson Memorial...so what? I still have to give away 1/2 of my money each year...airwaves are still granted by government charter.

In all actuality though, there probably isn't even a rule about dancing there. The rule is probably that security can take what steps they feel that they need to ensure the safety of the grounds and the visitors and staff. Best case scenario, you could have the sergeant reprimanded for over reacting. But even that is unlikely since the officers were incredibly restrained. Leaving out firearms, clubs, and tazers, all of the martial applications were entirely non-ballistic, restraining techniques. The gentle chokes, take downs, all of it. They could not have been more gentle.

And to save you(Jennifer, not Eiuol) the trouble of another ad hominem, I've studied martial arts for the better part of 14 years, mostly self defense applications. You know...in between episodes of Spongebob.

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

You should honestly look before you leap. In the last year I built a Montessori School from scratch which I expect to have open this coming fall; I worked part time; went to school part time; Made a significant positive return on my stock investments which I manage myself; this all was while I was emotionally embroiled in a terrible personal tragedy in which I assisted in removing my sister, physically and emotionally, from a white slavery circumstance which finally, 6 months ago landed all 5 of the perpetrators in federal prison with multiple life sentences. So...now am I entitled to an opinion or would you care to pointlessly insult me some more for disagreeing with this fellow's approach?

My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. Government owned property is privately owned property. There is no right to dance there, or sing there, or protest there. It is all privilege granted by the owner or in this case, the owners appointed caretakers. If they demanded that people in their facility wear only orange socks on Tuesday it would be totally within their rights to do so.

The only legitimate argument is that government should not be allowed to own that particular property which is not an argument which they made.

It's the same thing on public roads. Some speeds limits may strike you as utterly ridiculous, but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

Think about it like this...there is one stretch of road where the speed limit really bothers you, so in addition to getting arrested and spending tons of money on fines you write letters, make phone calls, hire attorneys, and finally you get the civil engineers to recalculate and they grant you a change to the one spot. Hurray. Nothing has fundamentally changed! The government still owns the roads and while you were busy eliminating that one speed trap they built 47 others. It's not a winnable fight in this way and doing nothing would be more helpful to the cause then trying to take them down from the bottom up. Ideas matter. You have to change the way people think or you're just spitting into the wind and getting angry that the wind blew it back in your face.

Writing, educating, or if you want more direct interaction, pursuing constitutional law and running for office are all legitimate. (And to be clear, most of what he does seems to qualify as appropriate. This one doesn't.

But it wasn't just dancing; it was dancing as part of a planned political demonstration. I seriously doubt that if on some random day two people started to slow dance in the Jefferson memorial, that they would be arrested. This was clearly a situation where the cops were aware of a pre-planned demonstration involving dancing and possibly a flash mob, that was not permitted or licensed. They weren't arrested for dancing, but for demonstrating through dancing.