The Moral Monday and Witness Wednesday protesters don’t seem to understand the costs paid by true civil disobedience. That makes this month’s rallies at the Legislative Building so lame. True civil disobedience means a willingness to confront real evil and real danger.
To consider just one example of real civil disobedience, the Rev. Martin Luther King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” while serving 11 days alone in a cell, without an overhead light and sleeping on a metal cot with no mattress. He was at times in anguish over the difficulties and dangers he faced from all sides. And of course he was
arrested and jailed other times by the authorities, mostly those of the solidly Democratic South.
Today those arrested in Raleigh often look jubilant as they are led off. Some might well be booked and released in plenty of time for later social engagements. Some brag about it on buttons or Facebook. As one said in an email, “I am proud to be a Moral Monday protester!”
And why not? If you want to stand up for something, great. But don’t think it compares with what Dr. King and others did.
Think of another contrast. The civil rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s were directed at flagrant discrimination.
When have today’s Monday and Wednesday protesters been similarly discriminated against? In November, according to our Carolina Transparency page, blacks made up 23 percent of those who voted, above their 22 percent share of the North Carolina population. And while hopefully not belaboring the obvious, at that election a black man was re-elected president of the United States.
Liberals also had plenty of chances to influence the General Assembly in November. They just failed. Instead of working harder to persuade their elected representatives to take a new tack, however, they are trying to undercut the functioning of the officials who actually won the most votes.
Do the protesters lack a voice? Our analysis shows that that many of the protesters hail from the professional classes, especially in education and the non-profit sectors. They have many ways to influence the debate.
Are they faced with great injustice? Today’s problems are less clear-cut than in the past. Consider one example. A couple of Mondays ago I heard at least one pastor inveigh against the General Assembly for supposedly slashing Medicare to next to nothing. At just about the time the charge was being made, however, those dastardly representatives in the House were proposing a budget that would:
set aside an extra $308 million to fill the current year’s hole in the Medicaid budget
include a $434 million increase to reflect rising Medicaid costs
add $49.7 million additional funds for Medicaid to accommodate additional enrollees resulting from Obamacare.
While tinkering with some aspects of the health care program, those evil lawmakers were planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on Medicaid, even as it gobbles up billions in the state budget.
The same could be said of many other actions by the legislature. The problem isn’t cruel legislators – it’s cruel math. The state’s economy has stumbled so badly that it now has the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the nation. Yet government spending over the years has grown exponentially. The money has run out and something has to be cut, and it will be, no matter what anyone wishes.
By all means, we need better ways of spending taxpayers’ money and improving the economy. But that requires innovation, hard thinking and persuasion. Protests are just distractions.
This much must be conceded: The protesters aren’t totally ignoring the democratic process. Their real goal may be to fire up their base for the 2014 elections. After all, going back a few years, arrests at the Wake County School Board stirred up plenty of controversy and may have helped unseat some board members. Maybe today’s protesters hope a new distraction will revive the liberal cause in NC.
So the Wednesday that really counts will be Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. The protesters would have better chances of celebrating success then if they’d find and promote effective ideas and proposals, rather than making lame gestures that feebly imitate a heroic past.
The arrest are no more costly than the Republican control NC legislature wasting time on bills such as raising the speed limit, or other junk!
I agree with much of what you say. The Moral Monday protestors are not facing the type of suppression that the Civil Rights leaders of the 1950s and 60s faced. Nor or they facing the sort of suppression that my ancestors family in Missouri faced during the Civil Rights movement of the last half of the eighteenth century. The arrests are mainly symbolic, and are not greatly feared.
While I agree with those points, I also suspect most of the folks arrested at Moral Monday would also agree. I was arrested on June 3, and I agree with you on that point.
But what of it? What would you suggest? Definitely the focus is on November 5, 2014.
I am a great believer in our system of democracy and free enterprise. I am not terribly alarmed by ALL of the things being done by the Radical Regime in Raleigh, but there are a few that concern me deeply.
I think that attempts to Jerry-rig the election laws to insure that one party wins are reprehensible, and an attack on our most cherished principles. I believe that laws that encourage the destruction of our Natural Heritage for short-term financial gain by a few businessmen are an affront to God.
Those are my beliefs. I am sure many have different beliefs. I am willing to go to jail for my beliefs.
Your opinion piece says: “… many of the protesters hail from the professional classes, especially in education and the non-profit sectors. They have many ways to influence the debate.” That’s true for me. I have an M.S. from M.I.T. some people believe their principles and moral obligations extend beyond the comfort and well being of their own family. Besides, even being educated doesn’t put me in the ruling class of folks who can speak with the governor at the $5,000 a head retreat at the Grandover Resort this coming week while playing a round of golf with those who think they’re aristocrats. So I have to settle for Moral Mondays and Witness Wednesdays.
While it may not be “flagrant”, what the NC legislature is doing is certainly discriminatory. (against the middle class, low income families, seniors, children and others)
At sixty years old, I have seen that protests do help affect change, if for no other reason than the fact that they bring attention to issues that perhaps some people are hoping no one will notice.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease!” (an American idiom used to convey the idea that the most noticeable [or loudest] problems are the ones most likely to get attention)
What is going on in our state legislature definitely warrants attention. Hopefully, these protests will spur people to get off their duffs to vote Art Pope’s minions out of office in 2014.
If it is costing the taxpayers money, what better to spend it on than democracy?
The current government’s argument that its decisions are driven by fiscal responsibility are contradicted by the decision to reject Medicaid expansion. These federal funds will simply be diverted to other states. If you are so concerned about the costs of Medicaid, why won’t you accept these funds? This decision will cost NC a great deal (and I’m just talking economically here) in the long term. And who will absorb the costs of care for the uninsured, in all its forms? It’s likely to be taxpayers, through increased premiums and increased cost of emergency care.
As the parent of a child with developmental disabilities who will rely on funds such as these to support her for her lifetime, it is clear to me that you are choosing to endanger the safety net for this blameless population.
And yes, of course we seek to energize voters. The progressive agenda was what brought in high tech, highly educated, well compensated citizens that created a rising tide for all North Carolinians. As you seek to dismantle these policies, you seem unconcerned about – or willfully ignorant of – the likely impact on businesses deciding whether to enter the state or invest in industry. Citizens interested in quality of life are not likely to come to or stay long in a state where their children are poorly educated, where they have to subsidize poor and uninsured people, where the basic services do not provide the expected lifestyle.
Even if this is not your intention, your self-serving and shortsighted policy proposals will have the practical effect of hanging out a sign saying “North Carolina – after 224 years,, going out of business.”
They wouldn’t be spending half of that had they not irrationally rejected the Medicaid expansion of the ACA (not Obamacare, dipshits). That cost was incurred because if their own irrationality. The protestors are right to point out drastic cuts in education, unemployment benefits, and deregulation of environmental protections, and it is even more American to “petition the government for redress of grievances.”