The Lunch Counter Rule

What we've forgotten about how political demonstrations work.

Following any protest that evolves into a violent or destructive riot, there will invariably be a large number of people defending it with some variation of “the point of a protest is to be disruptive” or “peaceful protests don’t work.”

The claims are nonsense, and I can see three possible reasons for why someone might utter them:

(1) It may be post hoc rationalization from people who get off on the power trip, wanted to steal some electronics, or are trying through a roundabout way to work through their father issues.

(2) There are some people who simply heard the refrain, never thought it through, and are repeating it as a sign of solidarity. I suspect this is the majority. And even if the message doesn’t quite ring true (perhaps they recall that the civil rights movement had lots of peaceful demonstrations), they think it’s harmful to question to doctrine. So long as you’ve got good intentions, it’s not only unnecessary to ask where the road is leading, but wrong because you might slow down the paving.

(3) Some people actually believe it. These are not smart people.

Ask anyone who supports any variety of unlawful protest how to distinguish their actions from bullying. If it’s okay for protesters to shut down a road (without a permit) because “the point of a protest is to inconvenience people,” follow up by asking if it’s okay for a group of protesters to block their driveway or front door to inconvenience them. If they agree, you’ve just found a new quarantine hobby.

The idea behind the right-to-inconvenience fallacy is that protesters believe they have a right to demand your attention. Of course that’s absurd. Everyone has the right to speak, and everyone has the right to listen, but no one has the right to force others to listen.

So if the point of a protest isn’t to inconvenience others, and people are free to ignore anyone they don’t want to listen to, what is the point? The point is to gather support by virtue of the strength of your argument and righteousness of your cause. These demonstrations, if large enough, may be disruptive incidental to trying to get their message out, but it’s the message (not the disruption) that is the intent.

What happens then if people don’t listen? If they aren’t persuaded? If they don’t take action or support your cause?

Then they didn’t listen, weren’t persuaded, and didn’t join your cause. There’s no guarantee of victory. Work harder, get better, keep trying.

Here is the crux of the argument: People supporting unlawful demonstrations have taken the position that when an argument fails to persuade, more extreme methods become justified. This should strike anyone with more than two teaspoons of sense between their ears as absurd on its face.

Not all good causes are successful in their attempts to persuade, and many bad causes do find success. That said, rational, virtuous causes tend to be more persuasive, and evil, noxious, or stupid causes tend to gain little traction. So, a theory that says the more people ignore your position, the more you’re justified in taking extreme measures would serve to empower the causes most widely rejected. That’s not a great way to organize a society.

If the “Taxation Is Theft” crowd fails to convince many people to join their cause, does that somehow justify shutting down streets, vandalizing store front, starting dumpster fires, yelling in the faces of tax payers and welfare recipients alike, and eventually destroying statues of FDR?

My gut is telling me no. Perhaps I’m just an out of touch old man, but my sense is that losing the debate does not justify ever more extreme tactics in order to force capitulation.

But What About Sit-Ins And The Boston Tea Party?

The civil rights era sit-ins at lunch counters were not merely a form of protest, but a form of unlawful protest. The demonstrators were committing trespass. And yet, we don’t look back on them as lawless hooligans – they were heroes. So what sets them apart?

For starters, their demonstrations were aimed specifically at the injustices they saw in society. They protested not being able to sit at a lunch counter by sitting at the lunch counter.

More importantly though, they accepted the consequences that come along with civil disobedience. They were willing to get arrested and go to jail. This not only sends a stronger message, but it sets up an important threshold for when a demonstration gets to run afoul of the law, what I’ll call the lunch counter rule: You only get to break the law in protest if you’re willing to accept the consequences of breaking the law.

Want to block traffic? Then you should be willing to accept whatever fine comes from doing so. Want to paint ACAB on a Starbucks? Then you should be willing to accept being charged with vandalism. Want to tear down a statue? Then you should be ready to face felony destruction of property charges.

That’s not what we see among present-day protests though. Protesters want to not only violate the law, but also feel a moral imperative to get away with it. The “whole point is to disrupt” messaging likewise carries with it the belief that disruptive and destructive demonstrations up to (and perhaps sometimes including) violence against people must not be punished. We’re told it’s somehow wrong to prosecute people for crimes committed while protesting.

But that opens up the whole can of worms of who gets to decide which protesters should be immune from prosecution and which should not. Surely the Taxation Is Theft guys tearing down an FDR statue need to go to prison.

Do we let society decide? Because if that’s the case then the movements that are granted a license to demonstrate however they want are inherently going to be the popular movements that have already gained widespread acceptance. But, if a cause has already gained widespread acceptance, no one needs to break the law to draw more attention to it or gain more support. (By contrast, the civil rights heroes who staged sit-ins weren’t expecting their mayor to order the police to stand down and let the demonstration continue.)

If something isn’t important enough for you to go to jail over it, then it isn’t important enough for the rest of us to tolerate you breaking the law for it.

What we do is ask the demonstrator their honest subjective opinion of how important the cause is, and then we take them at their word and let them suffer the consequences that they have deemed a reasonable and necessary sacrifice. If your cause isn’t important enough to you that you’re willing to accept the risk, then you have to get back on the sidewalks and just chant your slogans like the rest of us law-abiding plebs.

Finally we arrive at the Boston Tea Party, the worst of all examples because all one really needs to say in response is that the Boston Tea Party was both and unjustified criminal action and unnecessary to the patriot cause. Anecdote dismissed.

But, there is a part of the American Revolution that is on point, and it comes from a speech by Patrick Henry:

“Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!”

In this excerpt from the speech, Henry says they’ve tried petitioning, making arguments, even begging the government, and still they get no relief. All that is left is to escalate, and that means taking up arms and going to war. But the famous line Henry closes the speech with is “Give me liberty, or give me death,” not “Give me liberty, but I should face no personal risk in the endeavor.” He has followed the lunch counter rule.

Indeed, the entire American Revolution followed that principle. Those who thought that the fight for independence was so worthy that it justified taking up arms and fighting the British accepted that they were facing the possibility of death on the battlefield, or capture and execution for treason if they lost. They were willing to risk great sacrifice because they believed their cause was great.

What does that tell us about today’s demonstrations where even the most ardent proponents are unwilling to risk catch and release by the police? It doesn’t tell us that the cause is unimportant. The lunch counter rule doesn’t tell us if a cause is in fact worthy or unworthy. But, it does tell us something about how important the cause is to the people demonstrating. Important enough to disrupt the lives of others, important enough to destroy the property of others – not important enough to have their own lives disrupted.