- Nov 11, 2009
- 31,015
It's hollow honestly.
Protesters knew in advance that neither the city police nor the state police would charge anyone.
I'd be curious to see how many of them would have shown up knowing they would have been arrested and become felons for life.
The point is, if enough of anyone shows up, it becomes impossible to arrest everyone. Couple that with extensive media coverage, both network-level and individual, and the oppressors have to back down, or create a bloodbath.
Given that the sort of person who is likely to stand up in this sort of protest is not going to be anything like the "Occupy" crowd, it would be the police who would have to initiate violence against the protestors. However they might feel about it, no sane politician would permit that to happen . . . yet. The tide is turning our way across the nation.
A lot of New Yorkers have become voluntary felons. "Guns - what guns?". Once enough people indicate they will not follow unconstitutional laws, attempting to enforce them becomes a farce. The risk of The People re-discovering that they have the power to influence events and overturn absurd legislation threatens to undermine the control legislators like to believe they have. This cannot be allowed.
The situation will come down to either throwing us a bone - "let the poor bitter Bible-thumpers have their damn guns", or cracking down on an armed and seriously PO'd populace, or frantically passing a bunch of junk legislation that everyone will ignore, thus totally undermining their authority, and worse, getting them tossed out of office. Of the options, the first is least painful for everyone involved.