Activism

About 215 protesters were arrested Thursday after they lay down on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, blocking traffic in the latest of a series of demonstrations against the war. Most of those arrested at the ``die-in'' face charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration, police said.

Anti-war groups had called for civil disobedience, hoping to draw more attention than the largely lawful protests held daily in the city since hostilities began in Iraq. ``Nothing else gets attention,'' Fordham University student Johannah Westmacott said as she jotted down officers' badge numbers.

The free state project (FSP) proposes to identify the easiest state in the union to free, and then relocate 20,000 people to implement the liberation. The people interested in moving will sign up with FSP and vote on the state selected to be freed. There are 10 candidate states: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Idaho. Presently, more than 1000 people have signed up. In order to reach the 20,000 mark, less than 1% of the people who voted for libertarian candidates in the 2000 elections would have to sign up.

Despite the self-satisfaction of George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, and the somnolence of the press, there is rising resistance around the country to the serial abuses of our liberties. More Americans are becoming aware of what Wisconsin Democratic senator Russ Feingold prophesied from the Senate floor on October 11, 2001, when he was the only Senator to vote against Ashcroft's USA Patriot Act: "There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country where police were allowed to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country where the government is entitled to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your e-mail communications; if we lived in a country where people could be held in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, the government would probably discover more terrorists or would-be terrorists, just as it would find more lawbreakers generally. But that wouldn't be a country in which we would want to live."

Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto associate professor of political science, wants people to grab their cameras and hit the shopping malls Dec. 24 and participate in World Sousveillance Day.

Surveillance means, "to view from above." Sousveillance means, "to view from below."

On the day before Christmas, at noon, local time, all over the world, Deibert wants citizens to "shoot back" at surveillance cameras -- not with guns, but with cameras of their own. Participants are to head out, in disguise, to their favorite malls and public spaces, and photograph all the security cameras they find.

Gun owners are fond of saying, correctly, that gun rights are civil rights. But if we are a civil rights movement, we are not a very good one. The favored tools of the civil rights movement - those effective tools that have allowed minorities to change the hearts and minds of the majority around them - are tools that the gun rights movement does not now know how to use. Let me illustrate with a true tale of two activist conferences:

An incredible deception is underway. Ultra-leftist groups with long histories of supporting totalitarianism are posing as the chief defenders of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights against the current onslaught of police-state legislation. The Establishment media, of course, are assisting these pro-Communist poseurs, led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

I'm a bit unclear on this one. The claims in the opening few paragraphs sound like liberal-bashing from the far, far right, but the author then proceeds to back up those claims with some claims of evidence. I can't readily verify those claims (they are based around events in the first half of this century), but if true, it would require that we look again at the ACLU as a defender of liberty.

While the ACLU has admittedly held their nose and refused to support 2nd Amendment rights, their record in other areas is impressive. This guy's credibility meter isn't that high. But I'm curious what others think.

Former President Clinton on Tuesday was named a winner of the National Civil Rights Museum's annual Freedom Award. The museum, built on the site where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, gives two Freedom Awards each year to people who have worked to advance civil rights.

If you don't think Clinton's civil rights record justifies this sort of thing, you can complain to the museum.

Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor (R), recipient of NRA-ILA's highest award for defense of the Second Amendment, has been nominated for a federal judgeship on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It is critical that NRA members contact their U.S. Senators immediately to show their strong support for his nomination. Attorney General Pryor is a leading defender of our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Nationally, he took a very prominent role in fighting the frivolous and predatory municipal lawsuits against the firearms industry. In Alabama, Attorney General Pryor helped write and lobbied for the passage of laws that provide the firearms industry immunity from municipal lawsuits, preempt local gun control ordinances, and repeal the two-day waiting period for handgun purchases. NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox said, "Bill Pryor has proven himself to be a true friend of freedom and a true friend of the Second Amendment. For years, he's stood up and protected our rights when it's counted most; now it's our time to help him." On Wednesday, June 11, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Attorney General Pryor's nomination. We can count on anti-gun senators doing everything they can to defeat Pryor's nomination as a way to advance their gun ban agenda. That's why it's so important that you call your U.S. Senators before Wednesday to encourage them to support Bill Pryor's nomination. You can reach your U.S. Senators by calling (202) 224-3121, or you can use the "Write Your Representatives" tool for additional contact information.

My name is Bryan Henderson and I am an 18 year old senior attending Princeton Senior High School. Better known as Templar_Crusader on the PW forum, I am the proud leader of the small but growing PHS chapter of ProtestWarrior.

Operation Tiger Claw was my first attempt at leading a protest against the apathy and leftism running rampant at my school. It all started on Friday, May 14th with a small act of conservative pride. My socialist history teacher was on another kick about how articulate Noam Chomsky was, when I finally reached my limit.

Good work, kid. Give 'em hell.