As I watch the Ferguson "protests" around the United States, I have mostly feelings of disgust. Businesses are burnt down, vandalized, and looted. Commuters are trapped on the freeway. Why? What did these innocent people do to deserve this? If your problem is with the government, courts, or police, direct your anger at them. Don't harm innocent bystanders in order to draw attention to your cause. That's selfish, narcissistic, and criminal.
But it led me to a second related question: If a cause is important enough to you, does it ever make sense to go to jail for it? Is it ever justified to refuse police orders and get yourself arrested?
In situations where you are harming innocent third parties, the answer is no. But if you're simply standing up for the rights of yourself or others, and not harming anyone in the process, then the answer can sometimes be yes.
I can relate to this, because there was an incident over two decades ago where I decided I was going to do something, refuse any orders to leave, and force the police to arrest me if necessary.
I did it because I felt I was being cheated, and wasn't going to let it happen no matter what.
The year was 1992. I lived in the college dorms. I had also bought a prepaid meal plan, where I was entitled to eat a hot breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day in the dorm cafeteria for the entire school year.
There were two cafeterias on campus. I usually went to the one closest to my dorm, for convenience reasons.
During that school year, the campus had unveiled a state-of-the-art "smart" ID card which could do a few new things. Parents could load it with funds that were only able to be spent on campus, thus preventing their kids' textbook money being spent on beer. The card also had the ability to track the meals you ate in the cafeteria, and the system was programmed to only allow you to enter a cafeteria once per meal. This would prevent someone from eating at both cafeterias during the same dinner hours. I'm not sure why this was so important to them, as everything was buffet style, but for some reason this was a big deal. They would swipe your card when you came in. If the computer gave the message "no meal plan" or "already ate this meal", you weren't allowed entry.
One cool January evening, I strolled into my usual cafeteria for dinner. Swiped my card. Walked in. Everything seemed normal, and the person swiping my card didn't warn me of anything out of the ordinary.
I walked up to the hot food line, only to find it abandoned. There wasn't a morsel of food, nor were there any employees there waiting to serve anyone. I was confused, as the cafeteria wasn't set to close for another 30 minutes. I walked around to other hot food areas, and again, no food anywhere. Only cold offerings, such as fruit, cereal, and the salad bar were available. I walked back up to the front to ask what was up.
"Sorry, our boiler broke," I was told. "There's no hot food tonight."
"How long has it been this way?", I asked.
"It happened about 45 minutes ago," she replied.
"Then why didn't you warn me about this before swiping my card? If you had told me, I would have told you not to swipe it and walked over to the other cafeteria which does have hot food."
"I don't know," she said blankly. "I guess I didn't think of it. I figured there's still cold food in there, so you can still eat."
I asked for the manager, so he could arrange for me to go to the other cafeteria.
"Sorry, can't do that," the manager curtly told me. "We're on different budgets. Once you've been swiped here, that's how we get paid, so you can't go to the other one because then they can't get paid if you've already been here."
I was getting pissed. Different budgets? It was the same freaking school drawing from the same freaking meal plan that I had bought. It's not like I was asking for Domino's to arrange for Pizza Hut to make my pizza. This was all drawing from the same well, and clearly the manager had the power to make this right.
"Look, the girl in front can verify that I didn't eat anything here. She can verify that I walked in, saw what happened, and went back to her about 3 minutes later. Just erase me from your system as if I never swiped, or if that can't be done, call the other cafeteria and tell them to either make an exception or take my meal there out of this cafeteria's budget."
"Look, we still have food here," he snapped. "I'm not making that call. That's not what we do. The rule is that you can go to one cafeteria per meal. You've gone to this one, and that's the rule I'm enforcing. End of story. Now you can find something to eat here, or you can walk out. But no, I'm not asking the other cafeteria to let you in. We're not bending the rules for you."
I kept arguing. I told him that I paid for a hot dinner, and that they essentially took my money without informing me that they couldn't provide this hot dinner, and now were essentially refusing to refund that money.
Didn't matter. This asshole wasn't budging. I made up my mind as to what I was going to do, and stormed out.
So what was my plan?
As far as I was concerned, I paid for a hot meal at a cafeteria of my choice on this campus. They took my money, and yet were refusing to provide me that hot meal, even though one was still available at the other cafeteria. I decided that they had essentially stolen my money, and I wasn't going to allow it.
My plan was to walk over to the other cafeteria and tell them the story. I was going to fudge a little bit and tell them that the first cafeteria told me to ask them to let me in. If they refused (or checked on my story and found I was full of shit on the "permission" part), I was going to walk in anyway. If they asked me to leave, I was going to refuse. If the cops came and told me to leave, I was again going to refuse, and was going to let them arrest me. I decided that I would also sue the school for false arrest if this were to occur, and draw as much publicity to the matter as possible.
Why was I willing to do this over what was simply a $7 cafeteria meal?
Principle. I paid, they cheated me, and I was going to get what I paid for. And if that meant getting arrested, I was willing to let it happen, so I could bring to light the way the students were being treated here.
So did I end up going to jail as a result of this little 1-man vigilante cafeteria protest?
I walked up to the other cafeteria. They swiped my card, and predictably, it came back with the "already ate" message. The tired-looking girl in the front muttered, "Sorry, says you already ate tonight."
"Yeah, I know," I quickly replied. "Their boiler is broken over there. They forgot to tell me before they swiped, so I was stuck in the situation where I couldn't get any hot food, even though you guys had plenty over here. They told me that it's hard to reach you guys over here, and just to ask for you to make an exception and let me in."
The girl looked confused and overwhelmed by my story.
"Uhhh.....", she hestitated. "Well, I'm not... you're not.... ummm... you know what? Just go in."
So I went in, had my meal, and the crisis was averted.
Later I found out that the manager (who was a middle-aged employee of the school, not a student) was just being a lazy asshole, and that school policy was actually on my side about this one. He got in trouble with his boss over the matter, as well as other things he had been doing against policy for a long time which I reported as well.
But what would have happened if I got into a standoff and was dragged off to jail for trying to get the hot meal I had paid for? It easily could have happened, and sometimes I wonder what the ultimate result there would have been.
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
