One of my goals going into this semester was to engage in a good deal more civil disobedience. Now, I certainly don’t think that any activism of this sort is good for its own sake. Like carrots and exercise, I think civil disobedience is a necessary struggle that is good because it creates results. Humanity seems to have figured out a while ago that institutions that we accept and ignore generally stay in place and those that we speak out against and refuse to comply with are more apt to go away. The long and storied history of civil disobedience and its results speaks to this in ways that I can’t do justice in a blog.

Today we sit in a rash of civil protest boiling up all around us, the very dissatisfaction with society that so many of us often express, and all we can do is scorn. Most libertarians are pretty unhappy with the demands of  Occupy Wall Street. This mess of disorganized, anti-capitalist, angst-ridden noise is understandably pretty off-putting to the average advocate for liberty. But these people who we are deriding for being unclear and for fighting the wrong demons are wresting the eyes of the world from the cause of liberty. By seizing the spotlight and flailing wildly, this movement is crowding out the voice of liberty and our own inaction is making that possible. Wendy McElroy of the Freeman argues that we should co-opt the movement. Join in, speak up, and convince the protestors that they should turn their anger toward government and not capitalism. While I think she has a great point, I think we should go further. We should be drowning it out. We have the passion, the people, and the coherence of message to raise the sort of noise no number of screaming communists could overpower. So what are we doing waiting around?

Most libertarians like to focus on the ideas and change minds through well-reasoned, thoughtful appeals to good sense. But, I stand firm in believing that activism can’t just be about talking. Changing minds is definitely the right focus when we try to change the world, but more people hear your ideas when you act. The beauty of unexpected and poignant action is that it gets the attention of the people who should be your audience. When they empathize with the injustices that you expose or the issues you bring into focus, they are much more likely to stop and listen to your ideas. Thus, what has me so disgruntled lately is the fact that so many people are afraid to stand up and simply, unabashedly, and publicly defy that which is unacceptable in the status quo. I’m talking about signs and sit-ins, but also simple statements of fact and unafraid action in violation of unjust law.

One issue that I’ve been focusing on recently is drug policy reform for the reasons I think many of you are familiar with. Namely, the majorly damaging perspective that it is only some sections of society that use and struggle with drugs. One idea I tried to organize on my campus recently was a truth wall. It was simply a board where students and staff could come sign that they had used and/or abused drugs . My rationale was that exposure does wonders for acceptance (see: the gay rights movement). Unfortunately, my efforts were decisively shut down, not by some overbearing administrator or angry fellow student leaders, but simply by virtue of the fact that no one would touch it. Everyone was afraid, not only to participate, but to even discuss such an effort.

You cannot, it appears, ask people to give up some of the comfort of their lives to tackle a problem head on. One thing that I respect about the Occupy Wall Street protestors is their courage to stand up to police brutality, arrests, and injustice. If they can do that, so can we. Civil disobedience necessarily results in direct confrontation. People fear direct confrontation, and with good reason when you consider what the consequences could be. But this sort of confrontation is vital to actually creating change in those systems that are unacceptable. We have to stop accepting them.  It may be a good thing that most Americans (especially my fellow students here at the American University) are not oppressed enough to be pushed to the point of considering this risk worth the freedom they have. Heck, that’s a great thing. However, one of the problems with this outlook is that it allows freedoms to be slowly eroded piecemeal and for the less enfranchised members of society to suffer under oppressions that won’t touch those of us who have the time and resources to resist in a meaningful way. As for myself, I will keep trying to build support for this effort, but right now I’m a bit discouraged by the fact that we are so afraid to risk the material comfort and security of obedience for a chance at a better world.