Judge orders nuns to prison
 

LINKY



This judge is an asshole. If I would have broke in and done what these stupid broads did I be in jail for 20 years, but because they're (crazy) nuns they get a pass because they aren't typical criminals? I say they are typical criminals. They broke the law which makes them just as bad as everyone else and they should go to jail for a very long time. The pathetic thing is they think they'll be going to heaven..... What a joke. More criminals in heaven. If I am 100% wrong in my beliefs I'd much rather burn in hell for eternity than be in heaven with these pathetic fucking bitches. :mad: :mad: :mad:

I won't call what they did protesting. When you break laws you are no longer protesting. You now become a lowlife criminal.

What they did was wrong, I won't argue that. But when sentencing, the judge has to look at their intent when they commited the crime. These nuns didn't intend to destroy the silos or cause their malfunction. They were making a statement, and while they didn't need to cause damage to make it, they shouldn't be punished as though they intended to make any serious damage. The judge was right, in my opinion, because the laws were designed to punish people who intended to do serious harm or disable property, not protesters making a political statement. The differance is somewhat like manslaughter and murder. While they may have the same outcome, the criminals had differant intents and it should be treated as such.

They did deserve to be punished, but jeez, you gotta feel bad for em, but im glad they atleast got a lesser sentance. Sucks though, cause i didnt even here about this until now...so the original message was lost

I was stationed at a "naval weapon station" for some time, and if there was an intruder in the "limited access area" the use of deadly force was authorized. These women are lucky to be alive.

It doesnt matter if they were nuns, dishwashers, or honor roll students they breeched a weapon silo which is against federal law,
so off to prison with them.

Break into a missle silo. Good idea.

somebody plz explain to me why they were charged with"October 2002 act of civil disobedience" and not trespassing or something worse??

did the same thing to a school teacher last year

As nuns, I'd think they'd be a little more well behaved... would Jesus break into a missle silo to protest nuclear missiles? Maybe. Would he make a cross out of his own blood on the silo? Probably not.

41 months isn't an easy sentence, but I wouldn't feel guilty giving them a year or two more.

Surprisingly, I thought their sentence was light. I agree with what they were trying to say, but I disagree completely on how they chose to do it. If you do the crime, you do the time - person of the cloth or not.

That said, I have nothing but respect for those nuns for having the sheer, unadulterated balls (okay, pardon the phrase) to follow their conscience, damn the consequences.

Hm, what would Jesus do? Lets set them on fire and send them to hell instead of 6 years in prison.

They deserve every moment that they spend in jail.

Anyone who feels bad for the nuns or think it was wrong to charge them, needs to re-evaluate exactly what "law" is, and who are exempt from it.

It says that the judge ordered the nuns to reimburse the gov't for the repair cost for the fence. a bit over $3000.

Seems like justice worked just fine here. The nuns made a political statement, and it appears they wanted to go to jail. The judge gave them what appears to be a fair sentence for a pretty serious crime. Move along, nothing to see here. :)

No offense, Gortexfogg, but have you even read the bible?

<i>21:12
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
21:13
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
</i>

So, WWJD? He would charge in and knock some shit over. :)

If you turned a church into a casino he would. He didn't exactly burst into the Roman senate and go "NO WAR IN GREECE!"

Re: Judge orders nuns to prison
 

Obviously you're not a beleiver in civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience doesn't include causing damage to property.

Oops, thanks for catching that. I misread it and thought that he waived fines and the cost of the fence.

Re: Re: Judge orders nuns to prison
 

I sure don't. Are you saying that you think it's OK?

hold up.......look @ what martin luther king did. that's civil disobedience. he did not cause any damage to any property.

what these nuns did is NOT civil disobedience in my eyes.

Dude, there's a huge difference between fighting against racism and what these dumbass criminals did. I'm sure you're smart enough to understand, right?

sixate, read his message again -- he's agreeing with you that property damage is not civil disobedience.

That missile silo falls under the auspices of F.E.Warren AFB, in Cheyenne Wy. I was assigned to the 90th Security Police Squadron there in the early 80's. As reconmike pointed out earlier, these fences are clearly marked, in large red letters, "Restricted Area...Use Of Deadly Force Authorized". I can remember security forces having to deploy to these same type of "protests", on about a monthly basis, at some of the more remotely located Launch Facilities. These were largely perpetrated by idealistic college students, but a fair number were orchastrated by Catholic priests and nuns. I see that twenty some odd years has changed little.

Ooo.. expensive fence.

It had to be fixed with a $12,000 wrench and a $8,000 toilet seat. ;)

No shit...i mean, damn that Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, too! For that matter, the sabatours that tried to trip up the Nazis, Thoreou, the hippies at Tienamen Square, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, any other rabble rouser. I can't beleive people don't follow unjust laws, and just mind their own business.

No, wait, that's total bullshit. They were obviously willing to serve this sentence in order to break laws they think are unjust. They did so in a non-violent manner, and made no effort to disguise what they did. I don't agree with them, but your condemnation of them is without merit. Simply attacking them as being "lowlife" does nothing to prove the worth, or lack thereof of civil disobediance.

Nor does "property damage" make the difference. They're going to pay for the fence, a very costly one at that. I'm simply unmoved as to the difference between making the state pay to arrest someone and making the state pay for a fence is.

If you say civil disobedieance is ALWAYS wrong, then you have ceeded ALL moral judgement on your behavior to the state, and beleive that you will follow any order or law, no matter how odious it is to you. The phrase "just following orders" ring a bell? There is no free thinking allowed in that position-all laws are 100% moral becase the state enforces them, and all you do is in complience with the laws. Take a broader view...the state is not perfect. Resigning your responsibility over to them by refusing to disobey injust laws is to empty yourself of your free will.

How often do they get shot?

Not often anough! It's good for them I'm not standing in their way with a gun.

Hehe, same here.

protesters in general are retarded......

nobody really listens to them do they.....

Good job there the world is much safer now that the missiles are crossed with nun's blood! Retarded..(oops mentally handicapped..my bad)

Lets raise awareness...come on....

painting missiles or sitting in trees, flopping in the street etc.... are so played out.

If you want to do something fucking "DO SOMETHING"

Grab some power....convince some people to see it your way.
Put your money where your mouth is.

Frankly if a protester against or for anything gets in my way......that is the day the brakes on the car fail and I remember to wear the steel toes.

Peace is only possible under the credible threat of force. Pick your government, pick your religion....they all boil down to that.

As twisted as it works out nuns in jail keeps the peace >:P

I apologize for the use of profanity in my previous post.
Don't know how I got so carried away.

We also had numerous protests at the base I was stationed at, most of the time when we would react they would lay down peacefully and be arrested.

One time we showed up in APC's (ammored personal carriers) I was manning a M60 machine gun when we ordered them to stop, but they refused and we needed to stop them so I fired a 6 round burst over their heads.

Funny to see someone shit their pants, litterelly.

Or the boston tea party, for that matter.

Don't expect a response from the opposition on your valid point. They are too busy bragging about all the nuns that they would happily murder if they were in charge.

Very much the same on the Air Force side. They had a point to make, they felt that they made it, and quietly gave themselves over to us. Usually, just the sound of charging a round into an M-16 was enough to scare them shitless. No, to my knowledge, no one was ever actually shot and killed. Although I do remember a Senior Airman receiving an Article 15 because he fired about a half dozen rounds into the ground, at the feet of a fleeing protester. (Warning shots are forbidden in the Air Force) After that, we took a MWD (Military Working Dog) team out with us. Nothing like a German Shepard, with dripping fangs, snarling at you to to bring about an attitude adjustment. Damn...I just realized...I sure miss those days.

Well in the instance I had mentioned I was in charge as the Staff NCO of the day, I could have giving an order to kill them all because they were a percieved threat by not complying to orders to stop and surrender. But instead I made one shit his pants.

I will try and say this one time:

When you break into a nuclear storage or launch area that is a restricted area you are lucky if you are not killed justifiably.
That is not civil disobedieance, this is a felony and a breach of national security.

Let's try to spin this a whole other way:

when you break into a cargo ship in a harbor and throw the contents into the sea, that is not civil disobedience, that is a felony and a breach of security.

when you are a black and sit in the white section of a bus, that is a felony and a breach of the law.

when you refuse to pay justified taxes, you are committing a crime and breaking the law, and depriving the government of revenue needed for national security.

How do those sound to you?

Most recently, the government has enacted "protest zones" which herd legal protesters out of the view of the very events that they are protesting. Leaving the protest zone is "breaking the law". The goverment could just as easily outlaw all protests, so, under your logic, no protesting at all would now be allowed, since that would be breaking the law.

A goverment like the one you apparently want to live in has a name:
<i>Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
Date: 1921
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by <b>a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition</b>
</i>


Here are some quotes back at you.

"Give me liberty or give me death."

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
--Senator Barry Goldwater

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.
--Benjamin Franklin

The cost of liberty is less than the cost of repression.
--WEB Dubois

If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

Damn it, HarmlessRabbit, you're not getting it! I suppose there's no reason that you should. There is a Hell of a difference between the actions you mention...and breaching the boundaries of a nuclear weapons storage facility. These are nuclear weapons, for christ's sake! The government, and the military in particular, leaves absolutely no room for fucking around with these things. Nuclear weapons security is taken <b>dead</b> seriously. That is as it should be. Protest all you fucking want <b><i>outside</b></i> the fence. Hell, I might even <i>agree</i> with your cause. I have no great love of nukes. But, breach that fence...you are very likely to get shot.

No, bill o'Rights, you're the one that appears to be missing the issue. Allow me to pick out a few quotes from the posters.


The issue is greater than the nuclear weapons issue. The people above, for the most part, appear to:

- believe that civil disobedience, which this country was created from, is only ok if you don't break any laws. (discovering why this position is ridiculous is left to the reader as an exercise.)
- apparently, the proper response to nuns armed with paint and signs is to joyously gun them down in cold blood, or set them on fire and "send them to hell."


The arrogance and stupidity of the conservative side astounds me sometimes. I have *never* called for the death of Rush Limbaugh, for example, nor would I ever attempt to silence his right to free speech or protest. I wouldn't even joke about that. Totalitarianism and fascism isn't funny, especially today in the era of John Ashcroft.

I don't see the difference between this act and the Boston Tea party. I don't see the difference between this act and Rosa Parks walking onto the white section of a bus, breaking the law and risking lynching.

If Rosa Parks did what she did today, I guess the group posting here would shoot her, set her on fire, throw her in jail, and then bill her for the damage caused by any subsequent rioting that she caused.

Frankly, the conservatives on this thread disgust me. Shooting and killing 60-year old nuns armed with buckets of paint is apparently good humor material for the Right.

Civil disobediance is not okay. Are you planning to bring down the United States with these sorts of acts like said Boston tea party individuals did? Oh wait no, they were protesting England, not their own country. You almost tricked me, I'll get you liberals for continuously distorting history for your political gain, one day.

These people were in a place they knowingly shouldn't have been, with all the problems we've been having with terrorism lately, would I trust someone dressed up like a nun carrying tools? No. Should I? No. End of discussion, unless you have some sort of facts, rather then moral/idealistic attacks.

And frankly, you should know the rules of this forum by now, calling people stupid, arrogant and disgusting is not acceptable.

if they're guilty, shouldnt matter who they are or what their chose profession is....

I have a wonderful Idea, why dont you grab some paint and a ladder find yourself a nuclear silo or storage area and see how you are treated.
Or better yet why dont you run down to Toys-r-us and get a little plastic M-16(make sure you cover all that bright orange plastic with black paint) and then go do your civil lawlessness on that same base, see where that gets you.

You do not get it, THEY WERE IN A RESTRICTED AREA THAT HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS !
They were not sitting in or peace marching for love and drugs.

If you can not see the difference, well maybe you should lay off the peace, love and understanding mantra.

England was their own country at the time. Nice revisionist history on your part.

Actually, it is your comment: "Lets set them on fire and send them to hell instead of 6 years in prison." that I found disgusting.

Apparently, you find setting nuns on fire exciting, patriotic, and beyond reproach. Please, e-mail the admins now and tell them "I suggested setting nuns on fire and someone called me disgusting." If that gets me censored or banned, I'll gladly leave here forever.

And you don't get that the comments from many on this thread were not directed to this act in general, they were directed to the whole idea of civil disobedience being "not ok" under any circumstances.

This goes back to the protests against the war, where people here were saying that if ANYONE in the protest broke the law, all the protesters were in the wrong.

The right to peaceful protest, freedom of speech, and right to object to the actions of the goverment are hallmarks of a free society. Every day I see more evidence that the conservatives, who used to be the party that respected freedom, who used to be the party that passed the civil rights laws in this country in the 1960's, turn more and more into nun-burning, protestor shooting, rights-revoking fascists. Osama Bin Laden must be proud whereever he is hiding right now, his attacks on 9/11 have successfully put the USA on the route to being a totalitarian religious state just like the one he was trying to create.

I don't often have use for this word, but: poppycock. They were about as a part of England at the time as Kuwait was to Iraq. We were at war with England almost immediately afterwords!

A facetious remark, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Although they should be punished severely to set an example, I would settle for life in prison. As for your being censored, perhaps you should. Read the rules sir, both here and offline.

Those nuns should have gotten the maximum sentence, as far as I'm concerned.

Nice post, sixate.

cool it down boys. this is a political discussion, not a slap-fest.

Your history is terrible, sir. The Boston Tea party was a direct act of civil disobedience against english law. Specifically, the Tea Tax act which took effect on May 10, 1773. If the colonies were not under british control and law, the Tea Tax Act would not have been an issue, would it? The Tea Party was a definitive act of civil disobedience, performed by some of the founding fathers of the country.

It sounds like what they did was entirely unacceptable to you and many other posters on this board. Or, is there one standard for causes you agree with, and another for causes which you do not?

Well, if your nun-burning remark was "facetious", then my remarks were just clever puns. :)

Uhh....they were all British subjects at the time...England was their country.

Against English law, England was an enemy of our way of life at the time, the standard of my political cause is very simple: I like America and don't enjoy people hurting it, the Boston tea party furthers this goal, these nuns do not.

England and the colonies at this point are two seperate powers, there's no way you're going to retain English law whilst commiting acts of war against England, I highly doubt they ever recognized English law as legitamate in the first place.

The people who I disagree with are disobeying their own law, it's not oppressive and it's not foriegn, if they don't like it then there are far more efficient means of going about changing it then trespassing on a nuclear silo (the forefathers sure weren't stupid enough to throw the cannonballs from an english battleship overboard). This ability for change the Boston tea party fellows just didn't have available to them, the motives were different. You have independance on one hand, and on the other you have contempt for your own country. So I say phooey, this is nothing at all like the Boston tea party.

Again, revisionist history on your part. Perhaps this timeline will help:

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...n/rev-prel.htm

March 5, 1770 - The Boston Massacre occurs as a mob harasses British soldiers who then fire their muskets pointblank into the crowd, killing three instantly, mortally wounding two others and injuring six. After the incident, the new Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, at the insistence of Sam Adams, withdraws British troops out of Boston to nearby harbor islands. The captain of the British soldiers, Thomas Preston, is then arrested along with eight of his men and charged with murder.

So your story has now changes from "civil disobedience is not ok" to "civil disobedience is ok if I agree with the principle."

That's what I thought your position was in the first place, it's just nice to hear you confirm it. :)

Intresting how the claim is that they did not respect English law at all...which is why they replicated it nearly word for word when they set up their own governments.... Unless you're from louisiana, your legal heritage is pretty much 100% british.

And this is why they petitioned "No taxation with out representation" at the Boston Tea Party. They had no regard for English goverance...that's why they wanted to legally elect representatives to participate in it?? Hunh?

As I've said, I don't look at the Boston tea party as an act of civil disobedience, more of a declaration of war or open rebellion against an oppressive occupier, they called themselves the sons of liberty after all, were they interested in changing Englands laws and having them continue to rule them? No, I don't believe they were, not at all. This act they commited broke 3 years of peace between the colonies and Great Britain, it led to Patrick Henry stating "Give me liberty or give me death!" and it led ultimately to the war against England for the independance of the colonies.

Now, what are you saying. Are you saying that these nuns are freedom fighters who want to take out a foriegn power in their own land by starting a war? They certainly aren't this.

Are you saying they just wanted to stick it to their rulers? This is true, but America is for one not a foriegn occupier, and not oppressing anyone with crazy taxes against being a nun.

These nuns were doing something different then what happened at Boston, the motives and situation were completely different, so I object to your putting words in my mouth. Civil disobedience is not O.K.

As for the Boston massacre, those people weren't the sons of liberty, nor were they politicians. They were however stupid enough to harass armed soldiers, something the previous mentioned sort were clever enough to avoid.

And finally, they totally took a crap all over King Georges tax law by dumping his tea into the ocean. Sounds like they had a hell of a lot of respect for the law, because it totally lawed the hell out of them.

Then why was the Olive Branch Petition extended to the King if they were so keen on separating?

http://www.pro.gov.uk/virtualmuseum/...on/default.htm

So let's see, the Sons of Liberty broke the laws of the land in order to get a policy change that they wanted. Not civil disobedience? Give me a break. It's the very definition of civil disobedience.

I know I've backed you into a defensive position here. I want you to know that it's ok to admit it when you're wrong. I'll still respect you. :)

[size=large]Let's get back on topic.[/size]

Civil Disobedience: (LINK)

When it comes to protecting nuclear weapons, our troops have the authorization to use deadly force. Again, these women are lucky to be alive.

Seretogis, I completely agree with your definition. I think sixate set the nasty tone for this thread when he said in the original post "I'd much rather burn in hell for eternity than be in heaven with these pathetic fucking bitches." Nice way to start a rational discussion, sixate. :) Sorry if I got a bit worked up too.

A couple of points though:
- Obviously these women weren't trying to set off the missiles or do any damage to the actual equipment.
- They were prepared to die for what they believed in.
- They accepted their sentences without argument.

In a sense, they were very successful, in that they raised the awareness of nuclear issues through the publicity surrounding this case.

Also, while I agree that the troops had the authorization to shoot the nuns, the public outcry from the killing of three nuns, armed only with paint buckets, by the american military would have been outrageous and their cause would have been promoted even further.

Pfah! He avoids half my post and claims I'm the one in a defensive position! Clever kitties, I'll admit I'm wrong when you prove the Boston tea party is even remotely close to being anything like what these nuns did. I'll save you some time by saying you'll never be able to do so.

"Rally Mohawks/Bring out your axes!/And tell King George/We'll pay no taxes!" 1773.

I'll quote seretogis' source as evidence.

http://www.creativeresistance.ca/too...-activists.htm

Any time you intentionally break a law, usually flagrantly so the person knows you are breaking the law, you are committing civil disobedience.

The Boston Tea party was an intentional breaking of the law to protest what the protesters thought were unjust Tea Taxes.

The nun incident was an intentional breaking of the law to protest what the nuns thought were unjust proliferation of nuclear weapons.

By definition, what the nuns did was peaceful civil disobedience. You can twist my words all you would like, but the fact that the nuns were intentionally breaking the law in order to actually be arrested and thus put the government in a tight spot and cause public outcry is undeniably true.

You change your argument with each post. First the Boston Tea party, in your opinion, was not civil disobedience. Now, you want me to prove how was the nuns did was anything like the Boston Tea party, which you don't think was civil disobedience in the first place. Are you admitting that civil disobedience shaped our american way of life?

Heh, the colonies were very much part of England.

In fact one third of the population during the Revolutionary War was loyalist, and a third preferred rebellion, and the rest didn't really care.

We're only a country today partly because we had help from France (oh no cries many) or we'd be speaking English.. oh wait we do ...

I'll leave the arguing to HarmlessRabbit though because he's doing great :D

They got exactly what they wanted

What they got was NOTHING compared to what that crime would get if they weren't nuns. They got lucky.

I disagree. I believe I specified my argument earlier and have been consistent since. I am not admitting civil disobedience shaped our way of life, because I have consistently been opposed to the idea that the Boston tea party was this form of civil disobedience. If you have a problem with that, refer to previously stated reasons.

Also, if I wanted to twist your words I'd point out that by associating these nuns with the Boston tea party, and supporting them you're in essence supporting war on the United States. You don't want to declare independance from the United States, do you?

these people are doomed to having to be themselves for the rest of their lives.

that is the worst life sentence they could possibly have - and they gave it to themselves.