How do you feel about "inconvenient" protesting

[Scow2]

The perfect answer to protests that block streets is Monster Trucks.
The answer to Riots (The type with store looting and car flipping/burning) is Heavy Machine Guns - their lives are worth less than the property destruction they inflict.
If you want to block a street, better bring your own cars to form barricades to dissuade Monster Trucks.

No sympathy to those who defend a robber and bully who got shot assaulting a police officer, especially after my own experiences with 'Harmless Teenagers" (Such as the trio that beat, raped, and mugged an elderly woman on a bus.)

That said... protests directly blocking businesses (Infanticide clinics, offensively-run companies) is fine.

 

[Muspelheim]

Unless the place you live gives you no choice, apply to the police. They're usually rather good at arranging bypasses and making sure things go smoothtly, at least in my experience. Yes, a detour is a detour. But honestly, that is not exactly a heavy price to pay for sodding democracy.

However, protests that haven't been previously planned and block off access without rerouting done is a different matter. It's not a very good idea.

The answer to Riots (The type with store looting and car flipping/burning) is Heavy Machine Guns - their lives are worth less than the property destruction they inflict.

That solution might need rather careful application. Leaning too hard on machine gun fire was at least a partial reason to why Khadaffi spent the last minutes of his life in a drainpipe, wasn't it?

 

[lowtech redneck]

The right to freedom of movement, long-established as an essential right for hundreds of years, now.

Are traffic jams, then, massive oppression?

No, but blockading an important road simply to promote an agenda rather than as a means or byproduct of providing a public good qualifies as a violation of rights, albeit relatively minor due to its transitory nature (small comfort for anyone in an emergency situation), and as such is not something to be casually tolerated or reflexively dismissed.

 

[Tanis]

Also:
RIOTING does nothing but make you, your cause, and your community look like SAVAGES.

Isn't it weird how virtually nobody says this when white folks riot?

Not sure where you watch your news, but I see it even on Fox 'White-Folks-Central' News when some white folk riot over a sports game.

That's the thing, white folk riot over stupid shit like sports.
So maybe they ain't taken as seriously because, I mean...
Seriously...your team lost, or won, so now you're going riot?

Black folk tend to riot over important things, like when a cop murders a fat black guy for being black and the cop(s) don't get jack done to them.

It's context and sides of the isle, unless it's Fox then it's 1%ers mixed with Xenophobia and good old fashion elitist racism, that tends to drive narratives.

Remember Trayvon?
He was gun down by a mixed race individual, but that didn't 'fit' the narrative of the NAACP and the 'Rainbow' Collocation.
So, instead of an unarmed black man being killed by an armed half-white/half-brown man, it was 'armed white man kills unarmed black kid.'

I don't suffer from that bias.
Ferguson, Missouri was shades of gray.
Conflicting accounts, wittiness testimony changes, no video, etc.

New York was different.
They had video, they had a black guy being harassed for NOTHING but WWB (walking while black), AND he got killed.
Those cop(s) SHOULD have been indited for SOMETHING, but they weren't, because the person they killed was the wrong look.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Never. I don't give a fuck what you're protesting, you do not stop a business from profiting, or shut down an entire fucking highway cause "our issue is important *whine*. Every protester who does should be arrested. It's selfish, childish, and an asshole way to protest.

Agreed. Besides, the only thing they're accomplishing is pissing people off. People who might have actually sided with them under different circumstances but are now against them because they ruined their morning.

 

[vledleR]

As much as it may piss people off (including myself), it is a fundamental right. But the second a person or property is damaged, call in the heavies, because protest can easily become riots after something gets trashed.

 

[Godhead]

They shouldn't do that, at least not here in the States. Inhibiting people from doing their jobs, or closing off major roadways without prior registration with your local government shouldn't be tolerated.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Stuff like this is just the adult equivalent of a temper tantrum, It actually builds disdain within me towards whatever cause they are trumpeting down my throat. If people feel entitled enough to interrupt everyone's daily lives to shout their opinions, i do not value their opinions whatsoever. All this does it tell me they are childish, probably whining about nothing, an almost certainly twisting the truth or glossing over the real facts.

Captcha: Immoral data harvesting bullshit

 

[dragonswarrior]

Wow. The lack of empathy and the sheer amount of blase and unaware horribleness in this thread is shockingly depressing.

If you look at the history of the United States, you'll find that no where has there been positive social change unless the system has been fucked with. If the majority of the people in this thread had their ways we'd still be living under the Jim Crow laws, and women still wouldn't be able to vote.

 

[tippy2k2]

Look, I don't generally like politics and I don't want to get into a fight over whether or not one cause is justified over another or... anything like that.

I'm sorry about that. I was throwing those out as more of a hypothetical question with real life examples. My bad if I put you in a spot that made you uncomfortable; I was just thinking out loud

Any disruptive protest will have people against it. The line between worthy and unworthy is an arbitrary numbers game of how many people are against it. Because there are no absolutes with public opinion. It's messy, stupid, selfish, irrational. If the majority of people think you're wrong, you're wrong. That's the danger of it -- it grants a lot of power, but there are no strict guidelines or rules to follow. You can't define worthy, because worthy is ever-changing.

That's an interesting way to see it (worthiness as a matter of public opinion). I'm not sure how well that kind of guideline would work in the real world but it's a lot better than what I can think of.

 

[JimB]

If you're going to protest by walking down a highway I'll counter your protest by running you over on that same highway. Contrary to popular belief, protesting doesn't make you the most important person in the universe and the fact that you're screwing over a bunch of completely unrelated people is unacceptable.

Murdering people who make you have to slow down on the highway is totally acceptable, though.

It's only going to make me hate their cause even more.

If you hate a cause before a protest ever occurs, then I think protestors can probably safely dismiss your opinion.

There are better ways.

Okay. What do you recommend?

They shouldn't do it and deserve to be arrested.

For breaking which law?

The moment they put other people at risk of losing their job is the moment I decide that the protest is the problem.

That is your right, of course, and I sincerely do sympathize with you for the loss of your job, but I have no doubt the protestors thought your job is a slightly lower priority than black people getting to breathe and pump blood through their veins.

The highway is then blocked by the "$15 a hour fast food workers" movement. There are people with college degrees not making that much a hour and burger flippers are arguing that they deserve $15 a hour for what they do.

I will allow the following graphics to speak for me and my opinion on the idea that a living wage ought to require a minimum college education.

Spoiler

 

[Damien Black]

Wow. The lack of empathy and the sheer amount of blase and unaware horribleness in this thread is shockingly depressing.

If you look at the history of the United States, you'll find that no where has there been positive social change unless the system has been fucked with. If the majority of the people in this thread had their ways we'd still be living under the Jim Crow laws, and women still wouldn't be able to vote.

Yeah... I don't post often, but I feel compelled to lend whatever small voice I have to counter the tide of hateful self-centered entitlement that many posters in this thread seem to have.

If you truly believe that you have some right to convenience which trumps the rights of others to not be killed by those who have sworn to "serve and protect"... then I am actually really saddened. Those who wield hypothetical situations of those who merely might have suffered more deeply as a result of the delays are using a slim justification of "might-be's" to avoid actually thinking about the real, demonstrable, and recorded violences these people are protesting against.

As a side-note, historically peaceful protests have been most successful only when coupled with violent protests and rioting. I've read quotes from the MLK Movement to the effect of (paraphrased) "The Black Panthers helped our peaceful protests succeed. We would talk to politicians and say 'deal with us, or deal with them.' The politicians would suddenly become desperate to help us."

Lastly, to those who have, or claim to have lost their jobs as a result of protest-driven delays... it's an overwhelmingly servile mindset to accuse the protesters of causing you to lose your job. No reasonable human being would fire an employee for delays that they had no control over. Either your employer was appallingly cruel, or used it as a pretext to get rid of an otherwise problematic employee.

 

[dragonswarrior]

As a side-note, historically peaceful protests have been most successful only when coupled with violent protests and rioting. I've read quotes from the MLK Movement to the effect of (paraphrased) "The Black Panthers helped our peaceful protests succeed. We would talk to politicians and say 'deal with us, or deal with them.' The politicians would suddenly become desperate to help us."

Using your example, let's not forget the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Or the staged sit-ins. Those fucked with everyone else's days too, were organized by the organizations MLK was affiliated with, were completely peaceful, and are regarded as some of the most respected and successful protests of their time.

And those are just two examples I pulled off the top of my head. The 60's were full of these sorts of things, and they all together resulted in positive social change.

Can the folks in this thread imagine yourselves back in those times? "I couldn't get a sandwich today because there were too many black people at the counter! These protests are going too far!" Fucking hell folks. Wake up and hear yourselves.

 

[Genocidicles]

If you hate a cause before a protest ever occurs, then I think protestors can probably safely dismiss your opinion.

It could be a protest for a cause I'm all for like... 'Feed the orphans' or something.

If they irritate or inconvenience me even slightly then you know what? I'd rather the orphans starved to be honest, just to spite the cuntish protesters.

 

[Something Amyss]

No, but blockading an important road simply to promote an agenda rather than as a means or byproduct of providing a public good qualifies as a violation of rights, albeit relatively minor due to its transitory nature (small comfort for anyone in an emergency situation), and as such is not something to be casually tolerated or reflexively dismissed.

But apparently, a traffic jam is violating one of my important rights.

Not sure where you watch your news, but I see it even on Fox 'White-Folks-Central' News when some white folk riot over a sports game.

Really? Can you show me where someone on Fox News called white rioters, their culture, and their community savages?

I'd be especially interested if you could find something on the Keene State riots, since this has largely been downplayed as "boys will be boys" and people have gotten pissed off that some of the rioters might actually face discipline from their school. What percentage of coverage do you think these two events got there?

 

[JimB]

If you hate a cause before a protest ever occurs, then I think protestors can probably safely dismiss your opinion.

It could be a protest for a cause I'm all for like... 'Feed the orphans' or something.

If they irritate or inconvenience me even slightly then you know what? I'd rather the orphans starved to be honest, just to spite the cuntish protesters.

I doubt the protestors will assign your opinion any more validity now that you have clarified you think it is better for children to go hungry as punishment for actions the children didn't even take than it is for you to not get to drive as fast as you want to.

 

[Compatriot Block]

There's a difference between inconveniencing someone trying to go to a restaurant or something and shutting down a highway.

If I can't get coffee at a certain place, I'll be annoyed but move on. If I have to go down a different staircase on my college campus then whatever.

Ambulances use roads. If someone died in the back of an ambulance on a highway because of a protest, how is that okay? The amount of trouble and potential damage you cause by shutting down a highway far outweighs any attention you get.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

It's not only useless, it's actually counter-productive.

If I'm trying to drive to work and I end up being late because a protest shut down the freeway, it's important to remember two things:
1: This is the information age, whatever you're protesting about, I can basically guarantee you that I've already heard about it and am well aware of it, and have already formed an opinion about it.
2: You've now inconvenienced me (and others), even if I agree with what you're protesting about, this now makes me less likely to sympathize or join you.

Think of it this way: if a friend asked you if you had donated money to a charity, and you said no, and they kicked you in the shin, are you now more or less likely to donate to that charity?

 

[Raven_Operative]

Lots of the replies in this thread seem to think that all shutting down a road does is inconvenience people. Well, doctors and EMT personnel use roads too. If a patient dies because you decided to shut down a road with your protest, you are directly interfering with their right to live. If a lawyer can't make it to a criminal trial, you are interfering with their rights to due process.

You have the right to protest, yes, but you do not have the right to interfere with the rights of others. If you want to protest the police, protest outside a police station. Don't shut down a road and prevent people from doing their jobs. Some of those jobs are just as (if not more) important as you consider your protest to be.