To My Colegas en El Movimiento

In my conversations with who I call the matriarch of the current period in the movement, Gloria Saucedo, we have discussed the need to once again go directly to the offices of the migra in a series or rallies, specifically Downtown LA first. then, work with our brothers and sisters closest to the others offices, therefore supporting each other on other rallies throughout the greater Los Angeles area, including East Los Angeles, El Monte, Bell, Westminster, Santa Ana, Camarillo, San Bernardino, Los Angeles International Airport, San Pedro, Lompoc, and Lancaster.

We believe it is effective to go and demand an immediate moratorium on the raids until a just and fair reform is realized, to stop dividing families, as well as a meeting with the officials like we did in June 2004; where Libreria del Pueblo, San Gabriel and Pomona Valley Latino Roundtable, the Pomona Day Labor Center, and Estamos Unidos attended. We had semi-direct communication with TJ Bonner, then the migra/hls director. Moreover, we along with the office of Hilda Solis, who was one of the only politicians at the time to stand up and organize with us, led the charge to stop the "roving raids." There is a much broader network today than back then, let's work together and make this another historical victory in the movement.

But we cannot go demand a meeting without a show of force. Back then, the National Alliance for Human Rights, working indirectly with our small coalition, took a contingency to the Temecula office and stood down with the racistas in front of the office, and with the migra, which had positioned shotgun-toting, bullet-vested, and helmeted goons at the entrance gate in a comical show-of-force; at 40, I was probably the youngest one there, and our group numbered roughly 25 mostly from the Inland Empire, and Javier Rodriguez from Los. But it worked, along with the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Raids' work, and a 10,000 person march from Ontario to Pomona, the raids were stopped. MALDEF also played a pivotal role in bringing forth the unconstitutionality enveloped in the racial profiling question. From this station, however, is where the genesis of the so-called seatbelt and car insurance checkpoints emerged as mechanisms to clandestinely check for licenses.

Nonetheless, on behalf of La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, this call is made to our colleagues, move yourselves and your base, no matter how large or how small, to the Downtown office located at 300 North Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 next Thursday, September 21st, 2006, at 10am. The office closes on Thursdays at Noon, so be on time. Bring signs, noise, and your own personal demands.

Flyers will be out shortly.

Stay strong in the struggle,

Jesse Diaz, Jr.

ASA.NIMH Minority Fellow
Criminology & Race and Class Inequality

University of California, Riverside
Sociology Department,
Riverside, California 92521

an unjust law shouldn't be obeyed

The laws were written for a reason and no one is allowed to "cherry pick" which they will follow and which they won't. If you can't deal with the laws, then maybe you should take up residence in another country?

see, historically, laws have been changed--and sometimes BECAUSE they were purposefull ignored/broken....(look up civil disobedience)

Student of History, surely you would know that civil disobedience doesn't always lead to a change in laws... Sometimes, as you clearly show with your use of foul language and image, it helps futher the cause of those trying to support the law.

Angry tells us with no compunction or qualification that unjust laws should be obeyed. And so, Angry asserts he/she is another Milgram subject, an adherent of Befehlnotstand, and that civil disobedients from Thoreau through Parks and 1st Lt. Ehren K. Watada should leave the country--they aren't "American."

What Angry says is nothing new, and, by itself, wouldn't deserve even this comment. But Angry is the majority, the wall of resistance that must be breached, and for that, she/he should be listened to. The position is counterintuitive and illogical, but 2/3rds of Milgram's subjects would administer potentially lethal doses of pain if they didn't have to witness its effects. A full 40% would administer the pain directly. 93% would order another person to do it. Most people see all unknown others as non-human Others and will cause them pain and even death for about twenty bucks in today's dollars. How much lower is the price for killing an Other who is further alienated by constructs of race or gender or whatever?

Milgrim's experiment explains why so many laws are unjust, as well as why so many people don't hesitate to insist that unjust laws be obeyed. The question is, how can these people be reached? Can they be brought to real human(e) sympathy, if not empathy?

A clue here is that Angry identifies this as an "American" value, hence "Angry American," both a nic and a justification, and orders those who don't agree out of the American national "family."

Another clue is that he/she equates individual moral choice with cherry picking--that the state, not the individual--has the ability/responsibility to determine what is moral. That as individuals we are merely self-serving in the meanest, most individualistic way, incapable of acting collectively and linking our self interest to the interests of others. Nevermind pure altruism. Angry asserts that we will always choose our immediate, individual benefit over the greater good, even if that greater good also benefits us.

It's tempting to launch into a verbal joust with Angry, but, if his/her beliefs are as deeply held as they appear to be, beyond logic and untainted with compassion, then arguing over the question of obedience to unjustness is pointless. It is her/his moral compass. How can Angry be reached?

[ the state, not the individual--has the ability/responsibility to determine what is moral. ]

While this was true in the USSR, it is not true in the USA. In a democracy, individuals can vote and therefore have the power to change the social definition of morality.

Case in point: Sodomy is now "Legal" in many states where it was not before.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sodomy+law+voted

You might have an arguable point if you had established that the majority was moral. In this and any democracy, the morality is only as good as the morality of the majority.

In a democratic republic like the U.S. theoretically is, where we're told the majority elects representatives and put themselves at even further remove from decision-making, the morality rests with the morality of the decision-makers for their terms in office or until they offend so many individual's interests that they get recalled--and all of that presumes that no other politic force contradicts the will of the voters.

To assert that the U.S. is a democracy would be, frankly, just this side of delusional, if the idea hadn't been forcefed to so many for so long. The U.S. says it's a democracy; that don't make it so, Joe. To go on and suggest that it is a moral democracy, that moral or ethical decision-making based on the collective will of moral people is going on with any more than than accidental frequency, is truly Mad. You even cite an example, based on your "moral" principles.

? Wrote:

[ the state, not the individual--has the ability/responsibility to determine what is moral. ]

I provided a concrete example refuting the citation
(For the record, my personal preference is that sodomy should be illegal -
As an aside, the moral/immoral nature of the majority is what C.S. Lewis discussed in his essay "The Poison of Subjectivity".
).

I pointed out that, in the USA, the governed have the power to define what the government should allow as moral behavior.

Our system does, of course, require that the citizenry be sufficiently motivated to exercise the power of the vote. Most, sadly, are getting obese eating bread and rotting their brains watching the circus.

If you want another concrete example of the power of the vote in action, just ask Loretta Sanchez.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=active&q=Loretta+Sanchez++Robert+Dornan+Illegal+Alien+Voter+Registration

Mad,

I didn't say, "that the state, not the individual--has the ability/responsibility to determine what is moral." I said that "he/she [referring to Angry American and others above] equates individual moral choice with cherry picking--that the state, not the individual--has the ability/responsibility to determine what is moral." In saying you refuted the statement about the state's ability to determine what is moral, it would seem that we agree. But apparently, we don't.

Where we differ is whether the people of the United States, acting under the laws of the United States, have (or ever have had) the capacity to make this a nation based on moral law.

I say that the U.S. government has no moral authority to make moral decisions. It was so conceived and so dedicated that some peoples were granted human rights at the expense of the rights of others. This is an immoral position. From that inception, nothing moral can evolve except aberrantly. Hence, unjust laws.

Given, then, the inevitability of unjust laws, how does a person proceed? My answer is morally. You suggest that my morality is subjective, but that's not true. In any case, your answer is obedience.

This is where you might re-read what I said about obedience and cruelty.

...then what is its source?

[You suggest that my morality is subjective, but that's not true. ]

Lewis propose that morality must be measured against an unchanging, objective, standard.

What's the source of your moral standard?

nazis for target practice wrote “Angry tells us with no compunction or qualification that unjust laws should be obeyed”. Ummmm, let’s see... Laws are laws and they’re in place for a reason. Do you choose which laws you will and won’t follow? It’s truly despicable how, not knowing me, you can read a few posts and pretend to be a psychologist.

Your analysis of me thoughts are all wrong. I wasn’t trying to what anyone will or won’t choose. You have no clue as to my “moral compass” so I strongly suggest you get a life instead of picking apart online posts. Although, even though I can’t understand why the likes of you are allowed to breathe the same air as me, my faith does teach me to try and be tolerant to you touchy-feely “we don’t like that law so we’re not going to obey it” types.

And, if you really feel the need to reach me, my number is 310-217-7638.

must have hit a nerve, LOL
what kind of faith tells you you're so much better than someone else that they shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air???
Religion is truly the opiate for the sheeple....

Allow me, for a moment, to turn this back to the original article: why do either of you (or anyone else) object to this particular expression of dissent? As I read it, It doesn't hold even a hint of law-breaking. What in it led you to leap to calling this out as lawless?

Now, your issues.

Mad, I'll tell you this much--I'm not much of a C.S. Lewis fan. The "source" of my morality is simple observation of the human condition.

Angry, your god only demands "tolerance" of you? That's pretty feeble.

I hate repeating myself, but I was pretty clear: "What Angry says is nothing new, and, by itself, wouldn't deserve even this comment. But Angry is the majority, the wall of resistance that must be breached, and for that, she/he should be listened to." I'm not analyzing you--put your ego aside, I don't care about your experience with your father, and, I assure you, I have no "need" to call you or add you to my "friends" list. It's about a sociological phenomenon, which you, among many others, display in your actions--the adherence to authority over morality. You are an example, that's all.

But after looking over your myspace page and re-reading Mad, maybe I found another clue to the phenomenon in a common theme you both espouse. Your "morality" derives from authority--a god that embodies good cop/bad cop, promising rewards and love with one hand, and pain and banishment with the other (and please don't tell me eternal damnation is an expression of love). Perhaps it is no wonder that you both, and like-minded others, have taken an absolutist view of state "rightness." If moral behavior is derived from divine sanctions, then is it a stretch to say that government sanctions are equally absolute? After all, if you deny the principle that power makes right, then you deny your god.

Honestly, I'm interested in how either of you answer this. I am learning from this discussion.

TW wrote:
[You suggest that my morality is subjective, but that's not true. ]

And then TW wrote:
[The "source" of my morality is simple observation of the human condition.]

Then your morality is based upon conclusions drawn from your interpretation of what you have observed.

In other words, it is Subjective.

Hitler, also, was an observer of the human condition.
Apparently his subjective reasoning led him to conclusions that differ from yours.

to answer any of my questions, although I answered yours. I'm disappointed, Mad.

But I will take a moment to warn you that allowing that all observations are subjective makes you a fine post-modernist. And I will presume it applies to any sense of your god in the world.

"nazis for target practice" is not me. I don't nym-switch much these days

NFTP wrote:
[If moral behavior is derived from divine sanctions, then is it a stretch to say that government sanctions are equally absolute? ]

Socrates didn't think it was a stretch at all. He drank hemlock because he believe the government was always right.

Angry American says, "Student of History, surely you would know that civil disobedience doesn't always lead to a change in laws... Sometimes, as you clearly show with your use of foul language and image, it helps fu[r]ther the cause of those trying to support the law." and "Laws are laws and they’re in place for a reason."

Guess Angry American was absent on the day the teacher spoke about the Boston Tea Party.