Then you should already understand that keeping your actions “legal” doesn’t guarantee protection, and that forgoing effective means of resistance only helps the oppressors to have an easier time oppressing your fellow people.

The voters are not responsible for your oppression. The regime that is engaging in oppressive practices is.

You forget the fact they are doing this to countless people regardless. They don’t get to make that choice to just sit this out.

It’s called having solidarity with those being targeted, accepting the same risks they are being subjected to by simply existing, in order to help defend them against oppression. Part of that oppression is how the State has designed its laws to inhibit the ability of people to fight back against it.

If you allow the opposition to dictate how you are allowed to resist, then you already lost because they will never just allow people to effectively resist their authority. Change requires mass civil disobedience.

Or, continue to follow the rules of the oppressors, fail to effectively resist, and when they are done coming for their current target, they will eventually get around to coming for you, except by then you won’t have anyone around to help defend against it.

Yes. The entire point of direct action is to have an immediate and noticeable effect.

A protest is meant to disrupt the status quo in such a way that the establishment is forced to meet demands or else we continue to bring things to a standstill.

If your protest is not disruptive of the status quo, it is being ignored.

You and I have different metrics for “success”

Don’t forget the MOVE bombings where police literally bombed a residential area in Philadelphia.

Stop giving a shit about what is illegal. It was made illegal because it was effective. The establishment doesn’t want you to be effective.

People in this country have forgotten how to protest effectively. They have allowed themselves to be defanged and relegated to the sidelines where their actions will be inconsequential to the establishment they are protesting against.

Too concerned with “optics”, legalities, and trying to naively appease the opposition by asking nicely with a sternly worded letter.