Strip the subjectivity and emotion away from your analysis for a moment (not permanently), and it's easy to see both sides. Construct and add the same amount of

Strip the subjectivity and emotion away from your analysis for a moment (not permanently), and it's easy to see both sides. Construct and add the same amount of emotion/bias in the other direction and you can construct just as "obvious" a one-sided story for the other side! Just for fun, you can construct a weak form from just the phrase you used: "these folks have been gathering in this spot to do this [illegal] thing weekly... residents... want it canceled, citing [the law]" I don't agree with this reductive view, but to me it's not clearly more so than the one-sided perspective you expressed. As I mention in another comment, I think the question of community rights and "the tyranny of bureaucracy" is a fascinating and complex one, and don't think the situation is covered by simply noting that the gathering is clearly against the law[1] and isn't victimless. I don't personally recognize adherence to every detail of every law as the highest moral good (a view that's clearly widespread, even implicitly, as evidenced by the PD's refusal to do anything about the plainly-illegal event thus far, as mentioned in the article). But the question of where exactly acceptable, public lawbreaking starts and ends is a complex and interesting one. Where exactly does the line fall for where lawbreaking should be grandfathered in? What's the plainly-obvious equation for how to calculate when a group of citizens is entitled to break the law, and does that apply to all citizens equally? If so, how widespread is this legal bubble? If the law itself is irredeemably flawed, why not repeal it? If it hasn't been repealed, and implicitly has the support of our democratic system, on what basis do we determine that the exception being granted has the consent of society? None of these are rhetorical. Laws can obviously be unjust, as can specific by-the-book applications of overall-just laws. On top of that, not all important communities are concretely well-defined and not all important norms are codified. But I'm really puzzled by the claim that it's trivial and unnuanced to draw lines between the rule of law and the (many! contradicting!) uncodified moral convictions that it's being claimed should transcend collective decision-making about society's norms. [1] The article mentions consistent violation of ordinances. To the extent that the complaint is about the legal parts of the gathering, I agree that the topic isn't especially interesting.