Rory Miller (Meditations on Violence) does not like or respect activists:
At some point in the last thirty years or so what the people labeled ‘activists’ do has changed. If memory serves, the activists used to go into the deep south and sign up voters. They used to form neighborhood watches and clean up litter and graffiti.It seems that these days, the people who call themselves activists (the protestors and letter-writers and ‘research groups’) whine or scream or block traffic or sue all in the attempt to get someone else (usually the government) to fix what they see as a problem.
In case I’m going too fast here: you see a problem (even if I don’t agree that it’s a problem) and you put your time and sweat and blood and money into fixing it, you have my absolute respect. You see a problem and begin screaming or waving signs or orchestrating protests to force me (or the taxpayers in general) to fix the problem, you have my absolute contempt. Adults fix problems, children whine for adults to fix problems. That’s a basic difference.