Note to College Point and Other Towns in Queens: Your Homeless Shelter Protests Will Fail and Here's Why

https://www.timesledger.com/stories/2019/3/cpshelterrally_2019_01_18_q.html?utm_source=20190115&utm_medium=email&utm_content=College+Point+residents+take+their+homeless+shelter+fight+to+City+Hall&utm_campaign=newsletter

The above link is to a Times Ledger story from last January 15th as College Point residents are protesting a proposed homeless shelter. This protest and the others like it will all fail and for the same reason: You cannot debate or protest any subject when you accept the fundamental premises of your opponent. There is no debate in such a case, there only quibbling over minor details.
 The first and most effective action taken should really be to stop voting for liberal Democrats however, I digress.

So here's the mistake all these homeless shelter protests make: They accept the premise that there is a need for these homeless shelters and that the tax payers must finance them and must have them in someone's neighborhood. Just not in their neighborhood.

First of all, this isn't protesting or debating, it is quibbling over where the shelters are placed with feeble excuses about amenities, infrastructure and the like. Our fellow citizens from other neighborhoods or the other boroughs will not be persuaded to support the protester's cause because it appears like NIMBY College Point is simply trying to toss the hot potato of the homeless shelter into someone else's lap. And they sure as hell don't want it either. Trivial bickering and whining with city officials will not win friends and influence people. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you're just a group of noisy pests. Forget support from the mainstream news media as they are deep in the pockets of the political and managerial ruling class and will toe the official narrative without question. Expect no articles in support of the protest or even a sympathetic mention if it goes against official government policy.

In order for these protests to be successful, it is necessary to garner wide-spread support for the cause that will get elected politicians nervous about their re-election chances.

Secondly, there is the power dynamic between the residents and city officials. Accepting the basic premise of the necessity of the homeless shelters puts College Point residents into the position of supplicants begging the city to not put a shelter in their neighborhood and having to explain their reasons to the city. City officials are now in the position of the boss with the power to grant your plea or refuse it. If the supplicant's plea is denied, there is no recourse.

Further, understand also that working within the system and playing by the rules set up by that system is a losing proposition. The rules exist and are designed to protect the system and the ruling class here only plays by these rules or will break the rules when it suits them. It should also be anticipated that our managerial overlords will employ such dirty tricks as planting saboteurs in the protest who will say and do outrageous and offensive things as a way of discrediting the protest with news media people primed and ready to film it.

Now consider a successful protest.
Consider the Vietnam anti war protests. The protesters wanted all U.S. soldiers withdrawn, not arguing over troop numbers, where they were deployed or the rules of engagement. U.S. out of Vietnam now was the stated goal.

First we see that the protesters have taken an opposite position of the Johnson administration. The protesters are forcing President Johnson and his advisors to explain and justify the war (officially a police action) in Vietnam to the American people. The protesters are in charge of the situation and the President of the United States is a subordinate forced to explain himself which he was unable to do nor even to articulate how or when victory could be achieved. The light at the end of the tunnel rhetoric quickly wore thin. The result of the protests was that Lyndon Johnson faced serious opposition from within his own party and was forced not to run for re-election. Richard Nixon was then elected on the promise of withdrawing from Vietnam. A successful protest that changed U.S. policy.

Another more recent successful example of advocacy is the National Rifle Association. The NRA opposes all gun control proposals, no compromise. This type of stance prevents the left's slowly cooking the frog incrementalism of asking for small concessions one after the other until they completely achieve their goal. Take the opposite position and concede or yield nothing. Compromise is seen by the left as backing down and once you start backing down to them, you will never stop backing down until you are completely defeated. Nice guy moderates don't finish last, they are crushed.

In conclusion, again the first action taken should really be to stop voting liberal Democrat. But if protests are in order, they should not be over placement of homeless shelters but that there should not be any tax payer funded homeless shelters at all. Take the opposite stance and force city officials to explain why the working people who have enough trouble making ends meet should finance an ever growing population of homeless people from around the country. We can concede to state hospitals for the psychologically disabled (like we once had, thanks Geraldo) who cannot care for themselves but the rest should be seen to by churches and privately run charities. If you can't take this position, at least as rhetoric used in protests, because you're a prog or too much a stay-in-the-liberal-herd normie then why bother protesting at all. Just suck it up.


Donald Cavaioli