...and so I don't have to go through point-by-point and unpack all the faulty logic that Merwyn put in the above comment.

I'll just point out that protesting for rights of others is a noble cause, be they African Americans in the US, or the citizens of Iraq. It is the very best of human nature to protect those who are oppressed and vulnerable, as you yourself have expressed many times in the abortion debate.

You would have a point if you didn't already have free speech

The police response to constitutionally guaranteed right to peacably assemble, to engage in the act of "sitting in" which has long been identified as protected political speech shows that the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights is not tolerated.  

The people who sat at the lunch counters broke segregation laws.  Conservatives and people of privilege alive at that time came with exactly the same arguments that operate today, hey, the negroes can vote, they have free speech, but they go too far when they break the law and sit at a counter that is reserved for white people.  That is the law, if they don't like it, why don't they change it instead of breaking the law?

In the 60s people sat at the counters knowing full well they could get killed or hurt. Same with the Chinese students.

The people who went to the Port demonstrations did so knowing full well they could get killed or hurt.  It is not necessarily safe to stand in front of a tank, or to sit or stand in front of a semi carrying war materials.  It is not safe to sit in the street in the face of a line of police in riot gear. The activists of Olympia have one of our own who was killed by an American made bulldozer that we provided to oppress and victimize a civilian Palestinian population. If you are capable of hearing and understanding as you suggest below to Rick in these comments, you should recognize that the people who went to demonstrate at the Port understood the risks very well.  We were lucky.  No one was killed.  There were no serious injuries that I am aware of.  The risk of being killed or hurt was definitely present.  

The people in Olympia are not oppressed, they do not have freedoms taken away, and no reason outside of paranoia or hyperbole to believe they'd be killed at the Port.

No, you are very much mistaken.  The people in Olympia had their freedoms to engage in politically protected speech taken away.  The people in Olympia hd their constitutionally protected right to peacably assemble taken away.  Free speech is meaningless if it is only permitted in areas of popular support.  The right to peacably assemble and seek redress for grievance is meaningless if it may only be done in a limited manner that is an accommodation of the matter being grieved. Look again at the riot gear, the body armor, the police batons and open your eyes.  When you peacably assemble to seek redress for grievance and riot gear are deployed against you, it is impossible not to recognize that people may now be injured or killed.

When the government shuts down WIP, or your parents "disappear" because of your actions downtown, or if the OPD had used real bullets instead of non-lethal dispersion tactics, then you'd have a bit more validity. 

So when these things you mention begin to happen, you will suddenly become one of the brave souls who will sit a lunch counter when it is illegal?  or sit in a public square when it is illegal?  or stand in a public road and hinder traffic and break traffic law?    Will you concede that when the things you describe above begin to happen, that it's not a matter of validity, it's a matter of being so very late to work to keep our freedoms?

When someone even remotely associated with OPMR is found floating in the bay, and the police and courts give a free pass to the people openly bragging about doing it, then you'll have more validity.

If this level of outrage is what it will take for you to recognize the validity of the work for peace and justice, then you are not enlightened, you are late.  Do you really want to tolerate a level of injustice and political suppression that rises to the level you describe before you recognize the validity of the opposition to it?  so if we are simply not allowed to have our votes counted in elections?  or if our phone conversations and email communications are tapped and monitored, but nobody is floating in the bay, that's ok with you as a loyal American?  That's the level of violence that you need to recognize the validity of the opposition to an illegal war, a war for oil and war profits? Is it possible for you to set the bar just a little bit lower?

And finally, even in the south where I grew up, when negroes were being lynched, the KKK was a secret society.  That is part of the reason for the hoods and sheets, it made it hard to identify the number of police and other "honorable" citizens who were violating a lot of laws in the oppression of jews, homosexuals, communists, and uppity negroes. The open bragging about the crimes didn't happen, nobody was walking around talking about having beaten Emmet Till to death or having killed and buried the freedom riders in Mississippi.

Please read this hard and if you are really trying to understand the flaws in your post that Rick alluded to, I think you may recognize them.  

All of my heroes held to their message and vision.  Batteries not included. 

Ronald Reagan was a bit that same way. 

I think that's a Gandhi quote: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.   

...but I think it was pretty clear I was talking about the content of your post.

Started making comparisons to Nazi Germany...

DOH! 

is not an effective rhetorical plan if you have to read carefully, or quote accurately, or stick to the facts. Use of force is preferred to use of facts.  

This is an important point in so much right wing argument today.  Just scan a couple of quotes by the Great Communicator to understand the problem with rhetoric and facts. 

Per Mr. Reagan: "Facts are stupid things." '88 (slight misquote of John Adams, 'Facts are stubborn things.')

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." Reagan '81

"I have flown twice over Mt St Helens out on our west coast. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion  that that one little mountain has probably released more sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere of the world than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind that people are so concerned about." Reagan '80. Actually, Mount St. Helens, at its peak activity, emitted about 2,000 tons of sulphur dioxide per day, compared with 81,000 tons per day by cars.

This post is about another big lie being utilized by the right wing noise machine - a claim for reverence of past civil rights which is simply not based in any sort of reality. It is a rhetorical tool.  Facts truly are stubborn things.