this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
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Unpopular Opinion

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You identify a problem, you then call the attention of your family, friends and peers and really anyone who will listen to your rantings and ravings. After which if enough people support your claim to give confidence of legitimacy, you voice your concerns to authority. Or governing body or anyone that has been designated for the responsibility of resolving issues that arise within the realm of the aforementioned wrinkle in the rug. Only in the direst of need would would you and your conglomeration of dissatisfied citizenry shout, picket or otherwise raise a ruckus to your needs but life is such that needs be great at times. Go figure.

No, typically your movement starts with a letter campaign, phone calls and emails. If you're real lucky you might get a tête-à-tête with someone and if you're doubly lucky, on your way to resolution. It doesn't go down like that for most causes, most of the time it's all but ignored. Fear not seekers of change there is a way to avoid a fizzle out, get more people to join. Of course you could jump straight to hard disruption of daily life but letter writing, emails and phone calls are considered good places to start. Needs be great though and ignorance is willful and bliss. About now is a good time for ye ol' controlled rabble rousing... (it's a joke) but good intentions don't account for the actions of others though property damage doesn't trump a just cause. The bill on justification will come due and I expect to be satisfied. Feelings on rainbows don't meet my admittedly meager standards on letting your opinion be known, not that anyone asked.

There's not much recourse for your average person if the effects of your stance did not sway affections, unless that person is a multi-billion dollar corporation (cuz come on guys, corpos are people too) then you just drown the problem in money until it's buried or washed away to become someone else's problem. Most people are left with a problem unresolved and a pain in their chest that's not from the cuts, bruises or contusions that can accompany making your displeasure publicly known.

I would like to take this moment to tell you how stupid anyone is that intends to create change with the destruction of life that is not their own. I make an exception for self-immolation. If you believe in your cause so strongly that your only option is to extinguish your own flame in a dazzling display of sheer will. You get my respect for your force of determination if not your cause. The only 72 things anyone else gets though is in being blasted to 72 different dimensions of pain and shrapnel and good riddance too.

That is all to say that if you can't pay and you won't choose violence what other avenue is left to pursue?

Stop the machinations that allow people to remain willfully ignorant of the problem. I am sorry that you might be late to work, I'm sorry that couldn't get your triple pump whateverthefuck you're getting in a cup that makes you feel like the emptiness inside isn't so vast, I'm sorry you were delayed running those errands. I'm sorry for your death during a cardiac episode stuck in traffic. I am sorry. But to the point where your life has to stop in its tracks so you will listen, it's important. Some person decided to put their own life in danger to warn you that your own and those around you are also in danger. I'm not saying it is not a bitter pill.

Let us not forget that all of this is predicated on the assumption that when the piper cometh those ends were indeed justified by the means. What constitutes a worthy reason is beyond the purview of the arguments I'm laying forth. As for the eggs that are gonna get cracked, I don't mourn the loss of property only loss of life. In the many words I have used, I am saying that there is a reason the right to free speech and assembly are enshrined in places around the world and I believe in that reason. Whether or not those rights are protected in an equal and fair manner is a whole different can of worms.

tldr; I wrote this for amusement and for the play on words, doesn't mean I don't believe it. By default I care more about my own bodily waste than I'm going to care about your reactionary opinion. Exceptions will be made for adding to the conversation, upgrade to better-than-what-I'm-scooping-out-of-the-litter-boxes-at-home levels of interest.

I thank you for joining me in this ramble. Have a wonderful day.

edit: just want to give a couple special shoutouts, I won’t name names but you’ll know if I’m talking about you. First, to my peeps that are taking this personally, offensively or otherwise as an insult; fucking good, you need to face uncomfortable topics more often and I’m glad I could be there for you and share in this together. Second, to my peeps who found themselves vindicated in their original positions; the same to you as the first group. This has absolutely been my pleasure so thank you if you voted or voiced an opinion. Going to sleep for now but if you call me back to this topic with something good I’ll try to catch you in the morning.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The only acceptable way to protest is in designated free speech zones located out of sight so that nobody can hear or see you.
That was exactly what MLK and other civil rights leaders did.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I really wonder sometimes what'd happen if modern protestors started staging bus takeovers or restaurant occupations

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago

It depends. Part of the reason for the bus protests and sit-ins was precisely because those were the segregated spaces that they were protesting. So if your protest doesn't specifically have anything to do with buses or restaurants, you'll probably end up confusing people.

In the absence of a modern day analog, might be better to just pick larger public spaces to protest in where you'll attract more attention than random bus routes or restaurants.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

It depends on what you are protesting for.

Ending the genocide in Palestine or standing up against police brutality? You are gonna get some police brutality no matter how oeaceful you are.

Protesting against a valid election because tour orange wanna be dictator list? Minimal police resistance compared to any actual social issues.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder what would happen if every anonymous hackerman got all the dirt on all the bank execs and fortune 500 CEOs necessary and created neat little dossiers...

And then all the unemployed folks clogged up every bank branch in every major city to apply for frivolous loans, grinding their ability to conduct business to a halt, just hoping some branch brazenly discriminates against them and denies them the opportunity to present their loan application. Casualty of the cause? Sure, well sue a bank for discrimination.

Then slip the neat little dossiers under some neat little doors/into some neat little mailboxes.

And THEN, then, we take to the streets and protest. Clog up traffic. Dare them to stop "phase 2: cause traffic" when promptly before it came "phase 1: get their testicles under my boot."

First grab those in power by the balls. Then take to the streets. This is how scientology did it. It can be done for good just as it was for evil.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It would certainly be interesting. But instead, they keep targeting lesser-privileged people and leaking all of their data, ruining lives, etc.

Gotta love it 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I agree in principle, but if you put people in danger or could put people in danger, I consider that crossing the line of the Golden Rule of Liberty. That includes trapping people on highways and bridges.

So while protests can and should be disruptive and inconvenient, they must never endanger the general public.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

See the thing is that most protests that adopt these tactics do permit emergency services to cross the picket. We just hear more about the ones who don't because reasonable behavior doesn't make for click getting headlines.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)

Trapping people is harm. It’s kidnapping at best, and putting lives in danger at worst. “Allowing emergency vehicles through” is not good enough. If the protest is structured in a way that the public needs to take a different/longer route, that’s one thing… but if someone is trapped by such a takeover with no way out, that is an unacceptable infringement on the public’s natural rights; particularly the right to not be trapped or imprisoned (in either person or property).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Trapping people is harm

This I agree with. Am I wrong or would it be dead simple to do a protest on a highway where it doesn’t trap folks and causes no harm? Like two steps:

  • hold it not on a bridge and just after an exit
  • allow any/all emergency vehicles through, coordinating with them as much as possible

Obviously this is still a major inconvenience, which is good per the whole point of protesting. Perhaps I need to read more on protest history and strategy as I know there is a whole body of literature on the subject.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

If you're just a person in your car, the protest has no way to know you may be having an emergency

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm going to just zero in on one tiny aspect of your position, but...

I would like to take this moment to tell you how stupid anyone is that intends to create change with the destruction of life that is not their own.

You acknowledge that causing loss of life is not justified and...

I’m sorry for your death during a cardiac episode stuck in traffic.

You acknowledge that protests blocking streets or bridges can lead to loss of life, so how do you reconcile those two viewpoints?

Look, I'm mostly with you. Shut down places of business, shut down campuses, whatever you need to do. But if someone's protest is shutting down a busy street and someone dies because of it, I believe that's at least involuntary manslaughter.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Protests aren't supposed to be convenient

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

both based and unpopular, a rare gem for this sub

edit: i didn’t read close enough and making this edit to say i don’t find the part with “sorry not sorry for your cardiac arrest, we won’t do better next time” based at all. the rest is fine though.

progressives are very in tune with the concept of harm reduction, and it is trivial to apply this to both the inconveniencers and the inconvenienced people of a protest to ensure maximum possible safety. fuck the “oops but it had to happen” attitude that’s cringe as hell.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

I believe that protests should disrupt normal activities for bystanders.

That being said, I will never support those stupid environmental glue protests or any unlawful protest that blocks traffic, not because traffic has some kind of supreme right to keep going, but rather because it is impossible to separate emergency traffic from normal traffic and only let emergency vehicles past when traffic is backed up a long way.

A protest march that has permission (which our police is required to give out unless there is a safety concern) walking down the main road is fine, if an emergency vehicle needs to get somewhere the services already knows where the protest is and where it is headed, so they can plan around it, and since the police are there to keep order around the protest then can pause the march at an intersection if a fire truck needs to cross ahead of the march.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What if protesters aren't leftists but are on the political right?

For example, should pro-lifers be allowed to block the offices of abortion doctors?

What did you think of the trucker protest in Canada?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

These are great questions and these questions are exactly the reason I kept this as vague as possible.

What if protesters aren't leftists but are on the political right?

Does the right to free speech and assembly apply to them? Yes.

For example, should pro-lifers be allowed to block the offices of abortion doctors?

No. Their need isn’t justified.

What did you think of the trucker protest in Canada?

Hilarious, it brought a decent source of amusement to me. Also better than the alternative of attempting to overthrow a government through violent means.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No. Their need isn’t justified.

Ah, understood, people should feel empowered to risk health and safety, break as much stuff as they feel like, and get in the way of folks trying to live their lives... Unless you don't agree with their cause.

You made an effort to speak about "protest" in the abstract while ostensibly trying to steer clear of judging the cause of a give protest. However, in real life that's just not the case, like here where after a very long wall of text declaring protest to be good, you shoot down an example as unjustified.

The abstract concept of a 'protest' can be good or bad, and there are bad protests even for causes that would mostly be seen as 'good'.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

Agreed. It isn't really a protest unless it inconveniences people into paying attention and, maybe, taking action.

I think it's a demonstration where you gather to raise awareness but not disrupt.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

There are cases where this applies, when a significant issue is censored across all media and you can only reach the rest of the people with greater power to resist the oppressors.

In most cases, it doesn't. We have somehow normalized the assumption that people will listen more to protests. But do you really? Don't reduce it to issues you already pay attention to. Think from the perspective of the uninformed target people. Think of political ideas you don't tolerate. Will you listen more to them, if they block your way, ruin your day and may even harm your life instead of having a conversation with you?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

The climate crisis, the Iraq War, trans rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, abortion are not at all "censored" and are still worthy of civil disobedience to course-correct imo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

There are cases where this applies, when a significant issue is censored across all media and you can only reach the rest of the people with greater power to resist the oppressors.

This is the condition upon which I rest my case.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

OP comments like the ketamine is working

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Just a little pot nothing any stronger, this is just my normal unhinged self.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I'm 100% ok with places of business or college campuses!

I'm not ok with freeways/highways, though. People having medical emergencies could die while stuck on the highway. I'm a Type 1 Diabetic and have had some really scary incidents needing to get home and get food or soda because my sugar was low. If I was delayed 20 or 30 minutes by an unexpected road shutdown, I would have died.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Agree, never trap people, even for an important protest. Consent and freedom of movement are fundamental

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Good post. I completely disagree with this opinion. Stoping traffic and holding up the lives of ordinary people is attacking the wrong target. We’re all out here in traffic, not because we want to be, but because we’re struggling to survive. Not all of us are on a frivolous trip to star bucks mate. Take your grievances to the court house, city hall, or a police station, hold up those people’s lives, shout at them. I have to pick up my kids before the daycare closes. Don’t protest at me, I’m not the one voting on legislation that keeps people in debt, funds foreign wars, and keeps people from having access to healthcare. Those of us stuck in traffic are not willfully ignorant of any of these problems, we’re just fucking helpless to do anything about them because the system is designed to keep us that way. Protesting on highways doesn’t accomplish what I assume is your goal, to educate people and get them to agree with you. It just makes them not like you and not want to support you in your cause.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (10 children)

The difference is that sit in's were directly related to what they were protesting against.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It's interesting that you end a post about how important it is to make yourself be heard with a note that you don't care to hear opposing viewpoints unless they are presented in a way you like.

Regardless, the way I see it is at the end of the day, it's all about how popular your position might be if more people were aware of it. If it's unpopular, then others will cheer as the disrupting protest is violently cleared from the street. If it's popular, then the violence used to clear it from the street might instead make the protest bigger when it's met with outrage.

Though it also depends on what you mean by "right". I agree that anyone has the physical ability to disrupt daily life and that doing so doesn't make them a bad person on its own (that judgement IMO is based more on the why than the what, though it also depends on how extreme the disruption is; ie a stronger disruption requires a stronger reason to justify it). I don't agree with a right that anyone should be able to disrupt things for whatever thing is bugging them without any expectation that the state will just say, "it's ok, do what you want because you're unhappy".

The reason why I think protests should sometimes be stopped is because if you have a movement that supports something and another movement that opposes it, if both decide to disrupt things until they get their way, nothing will happen and there's a chance it will eventually escalate to violence, either between the groups directly or from others who are neutral but tired of the disruptions.

Also it's good to be aware that disrupting things itself can generate opposition in those who might otherwise support or be neutral on the issue.

But if you think your issue is a hill worth dying on, then IMO you should fight your fight. Be true to yourself. Just be aware that it might take a martyr for your movement to gain traction, or it might never get off the ground even with a martyr.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (15 children)

Your freedoms extend only so far as they aren’t encroaching upon others freedoms. Blocking my freedom of movement included

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

In my opinion, there is no democracy without the public being able to protest. If the powers that be are not making decisions or actions of the people, for the people, how are they to know how upset they are; unless the powers don't care and send tanks or armed forces to squash disgruntled protesters.

Even if you disagree with the protesters, you should allow them to voice their grievances publicly, otherwise you don't actually want a democracy, imo. I see so many uncaring takes or indifferent takes, it's the silent insidious part of humanity, like a cop watching a crime happen but don't want to get involved.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't quite follow... your tldr completely defeats the entire point you're trying to make? You care more about your own shit that their reactionary protest?? Why take all the time to type this out then?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

It’s so contextual on if the person agrees I feel it should be allowed no matter what due to that. I’ll also add I’m high and drunk and read nothing and am reacting instead of reading.

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