Unpopular Opinion

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.

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.

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.

Protests aren't supposed to be convenient

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I follow thw idea that we should be maximising the function of human freedom. Doing such ironically must restrict some freedoms eg removing your freedom to remove others freedoms. This has interesting implications upon your stance here mainly that whatever inconvenience ie restriction of freedoms your cause must be lesser than expected value of freedoms gained. This is thus my calculus of if the means justify the ends.

However, the issue we are currently facing is not a matter of how free speech is enacted but the simple fact that some people think that other people are not entitled to it. For example all the large social media companies censor people (as is their right as a private company) at the request of the government. Free speach is to protect is from the government and as such they should have no right to request any restriction upon speach of private companies.

I can see that in the future there will be attempts to restricts neuter sue and outlaw federated media by governments of the world. We as federated peoples pose the greatest threat to government restriction of free speach since the advent of the internet itself. I suspect we have already started seeing psyops to build distrust in federated services.

Ps i think ur headline does sound a little extreme and your words are complete purple prose.