Radical Hapa asks UU ministers about Civil Disobedience

Radical Hapa aka Joseph Santos-Lyons posted a query about UU ministers and civil disobedience on his blog. I am not a UU minister and, believe it or not. . . I have not yet engaged in any genuine "civil disobedience" in terms of my ongoing public protest activities in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal. My response to Radical Hapa's query is reproduced below.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Joseph Santos-Lyons for, unlike rather too many other UUs. . . being so radical as to not "memory hole" or otherwise censor any of my posts to his blog. Happy Thanksgiving Joseph!

As far as I am concerned those other UUs who unjustly and hypocritically "memory hole" or otherwise censor and suppress my pertinent posts to their blogs (to say nothing of elsewhere on the internet) are a bunch of turkeys who should all go get stuffed. . . ;-)

Without further ado -

Interestingly enough I have not yet found it to be either necessary or desirable to engage in any genuine "civil disobedience" to protest some Unitarian Universalist evil. Although I have in the past been falsely arrested in December 2000 on flimsy trumped up criminal charges brought against me by perjurious Montreal Unitarians. I was acquitted from those dubious criminal charges in 2003 after a few educational, and even quite entertaining. . . court appearances.

At the behest of Montreal Unitarians who make a complete mockery of stunningly hypocritical and effectively fraudulent Unitarian Universalist claims to be "opposed to censorship by church, state or any other institution". . . two incompetent, overly-aggressive, and Charter rights challenged. . . Montreal police officers recently seized and destroyed most of my picket signs citing a 1901 municipal signage and anti-pamphleteering bylaw that was abrogated in 1999. . . That hardly constitutes any "civil disobedience" on my part however because I had good reason to believe that I was within the letter of the law if not the spirit of the law. Come to think of it, in that in this case the two incompetent and aggressive police officers disregarded and even effectively broke the law, especially the civil rights and freedoms that are constitutionally guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the two police officers may well be "outlaws" guilty of a bit of unwitting "civil disobedience" themselves. . . ;-) I have even half-seriously considered having them charged with the theft of my picket signs if or when their seizure and destruction of my signs is found to have been outside of the letter and the spirit of the law. At present they will soon be facing a Police Ethics Commission complaint backed by Mouvement Action Justice and I will probably also file a complaint against them with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

I may eventually get around to engaging in some bona fide "civil disobedience" however, so far, I have been able to publicly express my protest against Unitarian Universalist injustices, abuses, and hypocrisy, quite effectively while acting well within both the letter and the spirit of Canadian and indeed Montreal laws. In fact I must point out that my false arrest in December 2000 on trumped up criminal charges brought against me by Montreal Unitarians who misled the police and Crown Prosecutor and told plenty of lies while under oath in criminal court, and the much more recent (almost certainly illegal and unethical) seizure and destruction of my picket signs by two over-aggressive Montreal police officers are abberations and that, in general, Montreal police officers (to say nothing of Boston police officers. . .) have acted very professionally and have not only respected my right to public protest but have even shown support and approval for it in both Montreal and Boston when I protested in front of 25 Beacon Street in the spring of 2000. I have even publicly complimented the two Montreal police officers who arrested me one Sunday morning in early December 2000 for the professional and courteous manner in which they conducted my now quite evidently unwarranted arrest. . .

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