Strike three

A human rights lawyer and reformer in 1914 considered the acceptable limits of the suffragettes' civil disobedience, which involved defacing the penny as part of their campaign for the women's vote:

"Defacing coinage is against the law, so there is that issue of whether it's ethical to break the law in certain circumstances. My argument would be that there are some times when in pursuit of human rights it is the only thing that people can do. As a lawyer I'm not supposed to say that, but I think there are occasions when the general public would agree, that somehow one has to stand up to be counted. Obviously there have to be limits of what we consider to be acceptable in terms of civil disobedience. There are some political acts which one would never condone, and grappling with the ethics of where it is appropriate and what is appropriate is difficult. The courage of these women was extraordinary, in that they were prepared to sacrifice their lives. Now of course today we have people who are also prepared to sacrifice their lives and one has to consider when and where that is appropriate. And I think most of us would say anything that involved harm to others has to be unacceptable."

What say you about today's OWS, the Occupy Wall Street movement of civil disobedience? Does it do harm? It is respected and excused in Los Angeles and other cities around our country. Liberals in acadedemia always preach protest and revolution from their ivory towers where they can 'feel other people's pain but never have to do the pain.' But is getting down and dirty in the trenches any less dishonorable? If harm to others is unacceptable, then all three groups ( I include the suffragettes) are guilty of dishonorable transgressions. We have moved from women defacing a penny to the OWS defecating in the public square.