The Tyranny of Politeness

On a Saturday evening in 2017, just before the Inauguration, I gathered with about forty other protesters outside the Catholic church that Paul Ryan attends in Janesville, Wisconsin. We quietly passed out flyers as parishioners filed in for mass. The flyers noted that Ryan was championing drastic changes to Medicaid that would be devastating for disabled people like us. Within minutes, the priest came out clutching a flyer. He angrily told us to get off the property. He said this was neither the time nor place for protest. We kept flyering. He went back inside the church. Within minutes, police were there, threatening to arrest us.

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