civil disobedience

Chris Knight's avatar

…and my anger and disbelief at what I am watching right now in this country, just won’t let me be as mercurial a wordsmith as some have alleged me to be.

So I’m going to relent to brute-force attack.

Regarding how President Obama is trying to force Catholic hospitals and other institutions to fund birth control, against that faith’s beliefs and teachings:

If this isn’t a situation that demands civil disobedience and even flagrant lawbreaking against the government, then I don’t know what possibly WOULD be!

I try my best not to judge the spiritual state of another. For the first time, I am inclined to be compelled to wonder about that of Barack Obama. How can anyone of conscience even conceive of mandating such a thing?...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Gary Ceres is one of the coolest most awesomest cats that I’ve ever known. He and I met during our very first week at Elon (when it was still Elon College) and… well I can put it no plainer than this: I’ve learned lots of good stuff from him about making mischief for the publick good! Like that poster of Hillary Clinton that we put up all over campus on the night before the 1996 election, but I digress…

Anyhoo, Gary has written an excellent op-ed piece that has been published in the Washington Times News (out of Washington, North Carolina). In it he takes an incident that happened while he was recently traveling across the state, and develops it into an essay about how it is that we no longer think for ourselves… but rather let politicians and dumb machines do the “thinking” for us. Here’s an excerpt:

t’s

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A federal judge has ruled that two New Jersey students can continue wearing buttons depicting the Hitler Youth as part of a protest against school uniforms, Fox News is reporting…

U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. sided with the parents of the students, who had been threatened with suspension by the Bayonne school district last fall for wearing the buttons. However, the judge added in his ruling that the boys will not be allowed to distribute the buttons at school.

“I’m very pleased,” said Laura DePinto, mother of one of the students. “I think it upholds the most basic of our American rights, which is to protest peacefully.”

Citing a 1969 case in Iowa involving students who wore black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War, Greenaway wrote that “a student may not be punished for merely expressing views unless the school has reason to believe that the speech

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Chris Knight's avatar

This morning I was going back though the past few months of blog posts looking for something I’d written pertaining to education. In the course of searching I found the video of WGSR’s Star Talk on June 14th where Mark Childrey interviewed me about my plans to address the July 9th meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education while dressed as a Jedi Knight. It was all to protest the “Standard Mode of Dress” (legalese for “school uniforms”) at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools that the board had approved.

As was reported here a few weeks later, the board wound up rescinding the earlier vote to implement the policy after POTSMOD (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) turned the meeting into a media spectacle with picketing by students, black armbands and not just a Jedi but an “escaped convict” too 🙂

Well, I watched the video ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Why do so many Christians, in spite of everything that their faith teaches, keep participating in such a corrupt political system? More to the point: How is it that too many professing believers in Christ still insist on supporting people like George W. Bush, who is anything but a shining example of Christian virtue?

That’s what Dr. Chuck Baldwin is asking in his latest essay…

I believe one of the reasons, if not the main reason, that Christians are so gullible lies in a mistaken, and even dangerous, intrinsic trust of government. I hear and see this attitude expressed among my brethren constantly.

Part of this problem stems from an illogical and unscriptural interpretation of Romans Chapter Thirteen. Christians have been drilled (and dare I say, brainwashed?) into believing that government is endemically good and should be thoroughly trusted. Of course, this was not the belief of America’s Founding

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Last night the Rockingham County Board of Education, after months of outright frustration on the part of parents, students and other citizens, voted 7 to 3 – and with 2 abstentions – to rescind its April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress (the euphemism for school uniforms) at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools starting with this upcoming academic year.

Now for the full skinny on what went down, at least from the vantage point of one of the members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) …

After last month’s meeting, when members of the board refused to acknowledge citizens’ concerns about the uniforms and the legitimacy of the initial vote, I had vowed to show up at the July meeting dressed in my Jedi Knight costume: admittedly, and I even said this last night, as an “attention-getting device”. And that’s exactly what I did. ...

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There’s apparently starting to be some interest in the stating of my intentions a few days ago that I would address the Rockingham County Board of Education at its July 9th meeting… fully costumed as a Jedi Knight. The only thing that I am leaving off the ensemble is my lightsaber. For one thing, I am being extremely cautious in adhering to the school system’s weapons policy: even though this is not a functional weapon by any means, I’m not taking chances. For all intents and purposes, this is simply a “different” mode of attire than what you usually see at a school board meeting. As it is, I don’t see this being construed as a special circumstance, and I’m not going to intentionally make it one, either.

Besides, I have something much better than a lightsaber that I intend to take with me. You could say that I will ...

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I just got back in from tonight’s meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education. The last time the board met during regular session, they voted to impose school uniforms (or “Standard Mode of Dress”) next school year at Reidsville Middle School and Reidsville High School. It was an 8-4 vote (with Herman Hines abstaining) that came after a lot of parents and students spoke out against the uniforms during public comments. I said after last month’s meeting that this is a way wrong measure the board passed and it should be rigorously opposed… as in “civil disobedience”.

Well, tonight even more parents and students came out in opposition to the uniforms (and not one in favor of them, it must be noted). These were some of the most passionate and eloquent speakers that I’ve ever heard at a school board meeting… and a lot of them were high ...

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Last night the Rockingham County Board of Education voted 8 against 4 to implement “standard mode of dress” at Reidsville Middle School and Reidsville High School next year. In other words, there will be school uniforms at those schools this coming fall.

There was quite a turnout at last night’s meeting. More than there’s been at any meeting since I started attending regularly last summer (I’ve only missed one meeting during that time and that was last month, on the night that Mark Childrey asked me to fill in for him on Monday Night Live). Several students of Reidsville High School rose to speak during the public comments portion of the meetings. I thought that they were considerably more passionate and articulate in their arguments than most of the “grown-ups”. When the vote came, at least two of the girls who spoke broke down in tears.

Steve Smith was ...

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