Wow! Just Fucking Wow!

[sangfroid]

17. I don't recall

Any SCOTUS decision limiting petitioning to government offices. In fact, it is generally argued they can take place anywhere. The action itself is the petitioning, not any faux handing over of a document with a lot of signatures.

The purpose of such demonstrations is to inconvenience the public, to draw their attention to what the demonstrators believe is a wrong. As a veteran road sitter myself (both Iraq Wars), I can tell you that nonviolent civil disobedience is not just a question of nicely dressed people standing in tidy groups in front of the courthouse waiting for the cops to arrive, where upon they all calmly and quietly climb into the paddy wagon. It also includes going limp, shouting slogans while in custody, refusing to cooperate with the booking system, extending solidarity to fellow prisoners, going on a hunger strike or pray-in while inside. These actions may not be "civil" according to your rather constricted definition, but they are certainly nonviolent disobedience.

And as for throwing bottles and rocks, did you know Martin Luther King Jr. Was a communist? Or that BLM is a black nationalist Marxist group? Or the POTUS is not an American? Yes, a cop told me...