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I find authoritarianism, a limitation of my rights, and inhumane treatment of human beings far more inconvenient than a glitch in my travel plans or a disruption to my vacation.
The fact that so many Americans have become such whiners about the inconvenience of protesters is frightening in a country founded on protest.
Agreed. Not only that, but I lived most of my adult life just outside of D.C. Know how many hours I spent inconvenienced by protesters? Zero hours and zero minutes.
For most of the people posting here it isn't really about the inconvenience. It's that they don't the politics of certain demonstrations.
Protesting should not equate to disruption, so in my opinion none is acceptable. I don't care how much you want your message heard. Go pay $'s to an advertising agency and run an ad on TV. F'ing up other people's lives, taking away first responders from more important tasks, and otherwise being disruptive is not the way.
So is it safe to say, if you had been alive at the time, you would have wanted those involved in the Boston Tea party incident, to be caught and prosecuted for what they did, stealing someone elses property and destroying it because they disagree with the taxes or Govt in power?
Well you could start with the Bill of Rights.
Then add 5 day 40 hour work week
Child labor laws
Medical coverage
They helped end Vietnam War
Civil Right protests
Prevented the bombing of Syria the first time they were going to bomb.
Power never concedes anything without a demand.
btw the above is just a sample of some of the protests that were productive
Bill of Rights was added by the government after the Revolution.
I don't recall any protest for medical coverage and child labor laws.
Vietnam lasted 10 years, and we finally gave up because it wasn't going anywhere. I would argue that protest achieved very little.
Maybe Civil Rights, but on the flip side, people protested against desegregation as well and that apparently didn't work. That and I don't recall any goofy publicity stunts like wearing a T-shirt with a statement on it while climbing a statue or anything. Just old fashioned picketing.
I don't know about Syria. The place still ended up a mess and we still bombed it and sent in some troops. Nobody seemed to care either way.
Power concedes a lot when a large voting block ask for it.
Everything in recent memory was a fail. Protesting the invasion of Iraq, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, NFL football kneeling...all produced nothing.
I find authoritarianism, a limitation of my rights, and inhumane treatment of human beings far more inconvenient than a glitch in my travel plans or a disruption to my vacation.
The fact that so many Americans have become such whiners about the inconvenience of protesters is frightening in a country founded on protest.
Your rights have never allowed destruction of property or impeding traffic. What's inhumane about telling somebody they can't climb a statue or block a highway?
There's something to be said about the rule of law and not let the place turn into a wild west free for all.
I'm sure if the protesters where wearing Nazi gear and Confederate flags, while blocking a bridge, you'd change your tune.
Has anything productive ever come from protesting?
It seems like it just creates division, discontent, and civil disruption. Everything from protest that turn into riots, Charlottesville, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc. It seems like more bad than good comes out of it.
In the end laws are changed because the Supreme Court either weighs in or elected officials get replaced and changes them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything change because of a protest. I’d be totally fine if they just scrubbed freedom of assembly from the Constitution.
I think that the bolded is a very debatable point and can be argued both ways. The first thing that came to mind was the Vietnam war, followed by civil rights protests (especially protests in favor of black civil rights. If you Google, "Did protests help to end the Vietnam War?", you will find opinions on both sides. However, my opinion is that protests DID because protesting that becomes publicized creates awareness; and as I think most people would agree, "the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing that there is one." I think that as more and more people's eyes are opened to a wrong, there will be increased pressure on government to correct the wrong and make it illegal (or in the case of an armed "intervention", to withdraw).
Regarding your last sentence, I am against changing anything in the First Amendment -- although I do think that there should be stronger penalties for intentional libel (including extremely malicious cyber-bullying)
And to repeat/restate what I said in an earlier post, I fully support support peaceful protests, but not violent ones or those that cause any kind of real harm to "innocent bystanders".
Bill of Rights was added by the government after the Revolution.
I don't recall any protest for medical coverage and child labor laws.
Vietnam lasted 10 years, and we finally gave up because it wasn't going anywhere. I would argue that protest achieved very little.
Maybe Civil Rights, but on the flip side, people protested against desegregation as well and that apparently didn't work. That and I don't recall any goofy publicity stunts like wearing a T-shirt with a statement on it while climbing a statue or anything. Just old fashioned picketing.
I don't know about Syria. The place still ended up a mess and we still bombed it and sent in some troops. Nobody seemed to care either way.
Power concedes a lot when a large voting block ask for it.
Everything in recent memory was a fail. Protesting the invasion of Iraq, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, NFL football kneeling...all produced nothing.
Yes Bill of Rights came after, I never said it didn't, it was added because of public protests. As far as the Revolutionary War goes much is made up myth that has been passed down to us. Only a third of the people wanted the war and as in all our wars it was started by the upper class and fought by the common man. We were never told that soldiers mutiny in the thousands or after the war Shays Rebellion was not the only one, they were wide spread through the colonies. All wars are class wars, they affect each class differently.
Over Syria people did care there were protests all over D.C. but most protests are not covered by the corporate controlled American media, they are usually only covered by foreign media.
At that time there were many peace groups both faith base and secular going door to door on the Hill to prevent the bombing.
And in Vietnam our government just didn't give up on it's own, it was the protests, the Pentagon Papers and the fact that soldiers in the field were refusing to go on patrol or they just stop once out of site of camp. Not to mention officers were being executed by the grunts when they were being force to march to their death.
The Occupy Movement was not a failure, it was shutdown by the government because the government was fearful. And that is where you want the government, you should not fear the government, the government should fear us. Many are still around they just don't sleep in the parks anymore some have join environmental or other groups some have even ran successfully for local offices throughout the country. And more people are waking up every day. And some of those that have won are self proclaimed socialist like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Democratic socialist, the biggest political upset of the year. As Dylan sings the times they are a changing.
Doing HARM of any kind is not acceptable. Ass----s that hinder the safety of others by blocking traffic and right-of-ways is completely wrong. Trashing a business that happens to be in the area of a riot is completely wrong (victimless crime? Think again! The damage, and hike in insurance, falls on the victims). Westboro Baptist creeps that infringe their perverted "protests" at funerals are doing damage. Completely wrong.
Doing HARM of any kind is not acceptable. Ass----s that hinder the safety of others by blocking traffic and right-of-ways is completely wrong. Trashing a business that happens to be in the area of a riot is completely wrong (victimless crime? Think again! The damage, and hike in insurance, falls on the victims). Westboro Baptist creeps that infringe their perverted "protests" at funerals are doing damage. Completely wrong.
First Amendment means nothing when you do harm.
With that logic though, those responsible for the Boston Tea party event and many other such acts, would be criminal or even terrorism level...right? What right did they have to steal that tea and destroy it, all because they didnt like the laws of the land.
If something similar happened today (despite the motive for doing it), I can almost guarantee, there would be a large amount of people calling for them to be caught and sent to prison, they would definitely not be viewed as patriots or heroes!
With that logic though, those responsible for the Boston Tea party event and many other such acts, would be criminal or even terrorism level...right? What right did they have to steal that tea and destroy it, all because they didnt like the laws of the land.
If something similar happened today (despite the motive for doing it), I can almost guarantee, there would be a large amount of people calling for them to be caught and sent to prison, they would definitely not be viewed as patriots or heroes!
Yes, but that occurred before the Constitution. Also, there were no recorded damages from the act. No innocent victims were harmed (that we know of), and they didn't attempt to destroy the ships. Rioters today cannot seem to protest without causing damage.
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