Ok, let me ask you this: if you and your friends had been arrested at some other time for blocking an intersection, say as a college prank, then what do you think the charges would have been and what do you think the bail would have been set at? 00, 000, 00000 ?
When experienced civil rights lawyers call the charges and bails levied against protestors "a civil rights disaster", then I would tend to believe that a breakdown of due process has occurred, and that this breakdown has far more serious implications than the actions of a few protestors doing a lockdown.
The history of the human race indicates that the problem of false charges and excessive punishments is far more serious than that of procedural violations or failure to follow orders. Or am I to suppose that the hanging of a man on a Roman instrument of torture, for protesting commercialization of spirituality, has no significance?
Original: Justice is a Matter of Balance