[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n May 13th, 2011, Michael Fox, a 38 year old father from Narrabeen, Australia, climbed to the top of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge in protest of how families in that country face a form of dissolution in family courts that is destructive the lives of their children.
Likewise, throughout the last several years different members of the organization Fathers for Justice have scaled buildings and other structures to stage protests, resulting in arrests and subsequent prosecutions. And from a purely legal standpoint, that makes sense. All these actions were illegal; all of them prosecutable offenses under prevailing law.
Recently, AVfM’s Keith, in one of a flurry of articles, explored among other things the idea of making calls to police, reporting domestic violence and surreptitiously referring them to the addresses of state functionaries. In fairness to Keith he included a note to me in the admin that I could delete that part of the article if I so desired. I chose not to.
It is not that I personally endorse that particular idea. Frankly, I don’t. But what I do endorse is a healthy, honest discussion of whether non-violent forms of civil dissent, even when illegal, should be held in legitimate regard by advocates for men and boys. In fairness to myself, I have to disclose that I am unambiguously supportive of such actions, though this site will not be used as a platform to organize, execute or encourage any specific plans along those lines. Generally speaking, though, my feelings about this matter are rooted in my identity as an American.
My country was born from an illegal act; treason to be specific. Every signature on the Declaration of Independence came from a man who knew his actions were subject to lawful execution. Every signer, bar none, was a criminal. Or, as Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “Gentlemen we must all hang together or we shall most assuredly all hang separately.”
Since that time Americans have frequently protested with illegal disobedience when their government exceeded its authority and operated in the realms of tyranny, oppression and moral turpitude. And God knows it has done those things a number of times, just as it is doing with men and boys today.
When we enslaved blacks, Americans of good conscious violated the law of the land by assisting their escape from bondage and providing transport to safe haven. When the government fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident and waged an unconstitutional war in Vietnam, Americans took over university buildings and conducted illegal marches to protest. The same thing happened during the civil rights movement with “illegal” protests and demonstrations.
Not only do I find those actions justified, but indispensible to a nation with a sense of justice that rests in the heart of its people.
The objections to this line of thinking largely stem from a sense that it is laws that constitute morality; that what is legislated is the arbiter of what we deem to be fundamentally right or wrong. Of course, this law and order mentality is the chief enabler of tyranny and oppression. For if what is legal defines our moral sensibilities, then there is no limit to the power of government to do anything it wants and every act of tyranny and oppression becomes acceptable simply because the tyrants and oppressors raise their bloody hands and give say so.
When laws are wrong, they demand that people of courage and conviction break them. Otherwise, we will forever be at the mercy of the most base and avaricious machinations of the elites; a situation that we find ourselves thoroughly mired in today.
Shall we ask their legal permission to claw our way out of it?
To those activists that would say that all the protests of feminists governance should only be staged within the strict and stifling letter of the law, I have some questions for you. Would you, if on a jury, vote to convict Michael Fox? Do you eschew the actions of Fathers for Justice because they violated statutes in the process? Is your reverence for the very system of laws that is slicing your brothers and sons to pieces so sacrosanct that you will stand by idly and do nothing, or condemn those that commit illegal acts of decency to protest legal abominations?
And what will you say when they criminalize your right to speak out?
I know it is a fine line we must walk. I am not an anarchist, as much as I might find the idea romantic. I do believe that laws can help produce justice, and that justice fosters order and collective safety, to one degree or another. But when the administrators of those laws become so corrupt that we must engage in relentless work to, say, remove a prosecutor who wantonly and openly users her power to illegally terrorize innocent men, then we have a problem that may not be repairable in the conventional sense. In that light, I have adjusted our mission statement and commenting policy accordingly.
While no plans for any specific illegal activity may be discussed on this site, it is now open for the general discussion and debate of those issues. As always, any advocacy or glorification of violence is strictly forbidden and users doing so will be banned from this site permanently.
