To the point that non-violent civil disobedience and activism of this type work, they work because people who are usually disinterested take an interest, and decide the activist or disobedient types are right, and the establishment is wrong, or at least that there's a reasonable debate.
There's no one who isn't already firmly in the "fuck the state" crowd who's going to be moved by such behavior (and I'm not saying he shouldn't do it, but filming it and broadcasting about it are pointless.) This is why I sent the email to the show a long time back and suspended my support--it was becoming the "free keene show" and I thought it was [doing] more to drive people away from the message than to it.
Ian may argue that it brings in more activists, but it obviously brings in more activists who do the same type of stuff, which isn't going to advance the mindshare of liberty in the general public--there in Keene, in greater New Hampshire, or the world.