If you're gonna go the crazy route, leading you to dishonor and all that, at least serve the President individual notice of the rights you are reasserting before setting foot in that march, otherwise, you aren't giving him due process, and are actually prejudicing _his_ rights, giving him even more authority to treat you like an enemy.
Thanks for the downvotes. perhaps you could combine them with a reply of why I'm wrong in my reasoning?
I wasn't concerned about the reasons why I was downvoted; I was concerned that I was downvoted while in no way being told I was incorrect. Reply with where I'm wrong, don't just try to bury a dissenting opinion. HN is better than that.
I didn't downvote you, but I'd say you're being downvoted because you say "I'm going to play by the rules of the game, as I'm stuck in the system", and are basically resigning yourself to the status quo.
The ethos of Hacker News is all about changing the status quo, and America as a country was about asserting independence and changing the status quo, in the name of certain kinds of rights that wound up embodied in the Constitution.
Arguing that protests are useless, that we don't live in a free society, that courage is unnecessary: it's frankly quite sad. People died in previous wars to give us the right to protest, the freedom in our society, and it is necessary that people should continue to fight to keep things that way, with courage.
Your reasoning sounds a little paranoid, like the "government has already won" and that there's nothing we can do about it. That's not going to be a popular attitude.
Perhaps you believe you live in a free society, I don't. I understand the ramifications of the Fourteenth Amendment, and how the bill of rights was filtered through the 14th to see what still applied to "subjects of congress" (hint: only the 2nd amendment comes out unscathed due to DC v Heller). I've read (and used) the Canadian Ownership and Control Determination Act [1], and understand how it allows someone to actually own people (actual slavery). I've filed UCC-1 Liens against people and had sheriffs seize debtor's property or put people in jail for not paying (debt slavery). These are not signs of a free society. these are signs of fascism and tyranny.
I hope you'll forgive my worldview for being different than yours, but perhaps we can find some common ground: We both want to live in a free society.
We both want a populace to show courage.
we think it's quite sad that people died in previous wars to give us the right to protest.
We both think the government has already won (the people are the government), and there's nothing we can do about that.
We both think is necessary that people should continue to fight to keep things that way, with courage.
Thanks for the downvotes. perhaps you could combine them with a reply of why I'm wrong in my reasoning?