October 22, 2017

(Comic) How Protesting In Tents Works

By wise sloth

(Comic) How Protesting In Tents Works

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TRANSCRIPT

 

A woman is standing in front of a judge in a courtroom.
JUDGE
Dr. Michelle Justice, three weeks ago you and several hundred other protesters were arrested for
camping in a public park. How do you plead?
DR. JUSTICE
Before I answer that I have a few questions. First of all, I paid for that park with my taxes. So
that makes it my park. So why would it be a crime for me to camp in my park?
JUDGE
Correction. It’s everybody’s park. So since everybody has a right to use it then nobody can use it
in case someone else wants to use it.
DR. JUSTICE
Did someone complain that they couldn’t use the park because I was camping there?
JUDGE
No, but your camping there was a health and safety issue anyway. So it was imperative that you
be removed.
DR. JUSTICE
If it’s so imperative that my health and safety be secured that you won’t allow me to camp in a
park then it should also be imperative that you won’t allow police to beat, mace, and taze people
camping in parks, right?
JUDGE
You answered your own question. The cops beat, maced, and tazed everyone camping in the park
for their own safety. So the end justified the means.
DR. JUSTICE
You don’t see that as the means defeating the purpose?
JUDGE
Justice is blind.
DR. JUSTICE
Or maybe in this case, retarded. So is there a nation-wide ban on all long-term camping due to
health and safety concerns or does that ban only apply to protesters?
JUDGE
It only applies to protesters, of course.
DR. JUSTICE
Why is that?
JUDGE
Because protesters are a public nuisance. You get people riled up and create a volatile
atmosphere that could result in harm to yourselves or others.
DR. JUSTICE
If all of that were true, then the end would justify the means though because we were camping to
protest against how multinational corporations have used corruption and bribery to shape the
nation’s laws to allow them to exploit their workers and customers at an unconscionable cost in
human life and dignity.
JUDGE
Even if what the corporations did was immoral it was still legal. So that makes it okay. The real
issue here is that you just admitted to camping on public property. That means you’re about to go
to jail where you’ll undoubtedly be raped and stabbed.
DR. JUSTICE
But I was camping as a form of protest. So I invoke the legal immunity reserved for citizens
performing their civic duty to protest against injustice in their representative government.
JUDGE
What you just described doesn’t exist.
DR. JUSTICE
But if any form of protest can be labeled a public nuisance at best and terrorism at worst then any
corrupt politician can call on the law enforcement officials they control to violently and totally
squash any protest against real corruption that has a real negative impact on the lives of human
beings.
JUDGE
But if we set the precedent that you’re allowed to protest then you’ll protest about everything and
never stop.
DR. JUSTICE
Assuming that’s the greater of two evils we can still compromise. How about if citizens get legal
immunity to protest only in cases where corruption has led to the deaths of millions of people
and the destitution of even more?
JUDGE
Nope. Order must be maintained.
DR. JUSTICE
Are corruption, systemic manslaughter, economic inequality and misery considered order?
JUDGE
This country has 4% of the world population and 25% of the world prison population.
DR. JUSTICE
It’s a well-established fact that poverty and income inequality lead to higher crime rates. So in a
sense, when you protect income inequality creators you’re not protecting job creators. You’re
protecting crime creators.
JUDGE
You’re forgetting another very important fact. By prosecuting illegal campers I’m also protecting
the grass you’re killing with your tents.
DR. JUSTICE
I fail to see how the cost/benefit analysis adds up in favor of protecting a few square feet of grass
at the expense of millions of people’s lives.
JUDGE
It’s just not my job to look that far ahead.
DR. JUSTICE
Whose job is it then?
JUDGE
The Supreme Court.
DR. JUSTICE
How does a person get on the Supreme Court?
JUDGE
They’re appointed by the politicians you’re protesting against for being compromised by the
corporations you’re protesting against.
DR. JUSTICE
Is there any legal avenue I can use to hold corrupt politicians and their financial backers
accountable to crimes against humanity that are equivalent to a trillion armed robberies and tens
of millions of cases of manslaughter?
JUDGE
I’m afraid the system is designed so the higher up the chain of command you are the less
accountable you are. So no.
DR. JUSTICE
Shouldn’t that be the other way around?
JUDGE
Not if you want to maintain order.
DR. JUSTICE
By “order” you don’t mean “the safety and dignity of the majority.” You mean “the power
structure that allows the rich to exploit the poor?
JUDGE
By “order” I mean “the way it’s always been done.” If that’s the way it’s always been done, then
yes.
DR. JUSTICE
We’re really in need of heroes right now. Why don’t you stand up for truth, justice and the
American way by refusing to punish protesters?
JUDGE
I got a family to feed. There’s no way I’m sticking my neck out for anyone else. Just look at
where that got you!
DR. JUSTICE
So that’s how it’s going to be then?
JUDGE
Every man for himself. Isn’t that what Jesus and the founding fathers said?
DR. JUSTICE
No.

THE END

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