"We Are Not Radicals"

 .  . . writes proud, defiant member of the Group of 88.

In his co-authored op-ed, and after implying that his conduct might somehow be comparable to the brave civil rights activists who participated in the Greensboro sit-ins, Group leader William Chafe runs through a litany of policies that prompted him to violate the law. A couple of the issues that Chafe raises--dealing with efforts of the North Carolina state legislature to restrict the right of predominantly Democratic constituencies (students, minorities) to vote--might rise to the level of potential subjects for civil disobedience, dealing as they do with fundamental rights.

But Chafe comes across as the work of a figure more interested in play-acting as a 1960s radical than in actually influencing policy. He suggests that he was protesting not merely these voting rights issues, but North Carolina's political leadership's decision to reduce taxes on the wealthy. He also decided to break the law because North Carolina leaders made a policy choice that Associate Justice Elena Kagan deemed constitutional and declining federal funds to expand Medicaid. And he believed that he could place himself above the law because he knows better than North Carolina's elected government on whether to make a policy choice that former associate justice David Souter deemed constitutional and imposing some restrictions on abortion. A . . . distinguished . . . professor deems these policy choices to be grounds for civil disobedience?

The Chafe argument, summarized: unless a government elected by a majority of the voters enacts the policy agenda of the minority party (with which he happens to agree), he will engage in civil disobedience.

We live in a representative democracy. The state's Republican governor and GOP-led legislature ran on a platform of lowering taxes on the wealthy. If Chafe considers this policy so unappealing, perhaps he should devote himself to using his way with words to persuade a majority of his state's fellow citizens, rather than resort to breaking the law.

And imagine how Prof. Chafe would have reacted if Tea Party types had engaged in civil disobedience to demand higher taxes on the poor, or had screamed at women trying to access an abortion clinic. Somehow I doubt that he would have compared the Tea Partiers to a modern-day version of the Greensboro Four.

An aside: in what way does Chafe's past status as a president of the Organization of American Historians argue against deeming him a "radical"?