Also, a lack of media coverage for a thing doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does rampant media coverage mean a thing is common. Remember the summer of the shark? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_lane_closure_scandal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_the_Shark
Just today, an interstate was shut down unexpectedly because of protesters. What about everyone who was trapped on that highway and could not move, let alone reroute?
side comment: Loving the downvotes for a legitimate point. When did hacker news turn into reddit?
And I didn't hear anyone make the argument any of those things should be banned to prevent the potential loss of life from someone trying to get to a hospital while not in an ambulance.
It really seems like an isolated demand for safety.
- https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/perm....
And planning does matter, because when events are planned, proper detours can be set up with signage.
It's that blocking traffic is a material, aggressive escalation of a protest that could have very negative ramifications to the cause. Not only does it really really piss people off, it puts human bodies in direct conflict with vehicles and could potentially block travel to someone that needs urgent medical attention.
If that's your jam then go for it. For my part, if i am in a vehicle with family and we are in a traffic jam due to a protest, i'm going to be in an agitated state...not because of the delay but because of the inability to escape. I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight. That innate sense of how i would respond and is why i think people should approach blocking traffic with caution.
He's isn't "firing [himself] up.." as you say, he's thinking out what could possibly happen and considering what his options are.
If you wait until you're in such a situation (people are breaking into your car and threatening to harm the occupants) you simply don't have sufficient time to think out those options - you must think and prepare ahead of time. For those who live in places where riots or firefight break out regularly, this is the proper and usual way to prepare.
FWIW in most of the USA it isn't homicide if you kill an attacker(s), provided you are defending life or limb of yourself, others and/or your property.
jcims didn't say that he would be "Driving a car into a crowd..." as you state.
Clearly, if rioters begin beating a car and breaking windows the driver has the option of surviving by driving to preserve life, limb and property.
jascii says>"mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous."<
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob or mobs while driving a vehicle? We're discussing it here, so you've now at least considered (and possibly once experienced) such a situation: otherwise how could you claim that such an option can be, as you state, "extremely dangerous"?
Tell us your valuable experiences, please.
BTW there's plenty on this topic previously on the innertubes:
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/caught-riot-driving/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-my-legal-options-if-my-car-is...
Work is an escalation that could literally cost lives..
Theoretical grandstanding over an unlikely hypothetical scenario to condemn protesters is being obtuse.
This is not theoretical grandstanding, this is recognizing a potential threat.
> "To see this - traffic blocking the main intersection of a level 1 trauma centre, blocking the entrance and exit to our hospital. Blocking patients from receiving care that they need, makes me angry. It hurts. It hurts a lot," said one healthcare worker on Facebook.
> WLNS reports another posting: "You are currently blocking ambulances, physicians and caregivers from making it to work to care for the sick and relieve the exhausted workers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Quotes a local news story: https://www.wlns.com/news/health/coronavirus/capitol-protest...
> Sparrow spokesperson John Foren said there are no access problems and ambulances can “get in and out. There’s no problem.”
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
Social media is clogged with live footage from the protests. Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests?
The irony of your comment is that the likelihood of an ambulance being close to a protest is linked to the extreme violence that the police is using to attack and repress protests against police violence.
Why would anyone make a video of stopped traffic?
Because people like you are hell bent on smearing the protests, resorting even to come up with made-up accusations like ambulances stuck in traffic, and any evidence would provide some support to those claims.
But apparently even that is hard to come by. So here we are, stuck with fabrications and imaginary "what if" scenarios.
Anyways, if you're trapped in traffic and not moving, there's not much else for you to do besides get out your phone and take some video.
"Despite some "confusion," Lansing police had no complaints about any ambulance being locked in traffic during an emergency, said Robert Merritt, a spokesman for the Lansing Police Department. When ambulances on non-emergency runs were in traffic, "rally participants slowly cleared a path," he said."
[1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
People have done tests with white people and black people open carrying in exactly the same way. Black open carriers got a very different police response.
Edit: I mean, come on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eVPKpBKGCE
(Fascinating trivia: California allowed open carry until the Mulford Act in 1967 restricted it -- directly in response to the Black Panthers practicing it. The Act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, with the explicit support of the National Rifle Association.)
You don't have to condone it. The question is whether it's appropriate to escalate to violence to stop it. And it clearly isn't, even from the very narrow perspective of the police. The phone video shot two days ago energized the huge protests yesterday, who ended up getting gassed out of a church in DC so the president could hold up a bible, which is driving literally millions more people into the streets.
Let them do their thing, and everyone will get bored. Yes, it's a dick move to block an intersection. But we don't tear gas routine assholes, right?
Never thought of it this way before, but this train of thought strongly resonates with me and makes sense. Thanks for posting it.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro...
We don't have the right to block traffic to promote our political opinions.
When protestors block traffic, if the city decides they have to go, and they won't - in those situations, it's the protesters who are 'instigating', not the police.
NRA 2cnd amendment protestors, pro/anti-abortion protestors, anti-capitalist - whatever we want it doesn't matter. If the protest violates the local or regional ordinance, and the city asks protesters to move (and they do in many cases allow the protesters to stay) - they have to move, if they don't move, it's not the police's fault that they are literally required by us, the community, to move people.
Edit: I would like to invite anyone to define exactly under what conditions people think they have the right to stop traffic at major intersections for hours on end, other than of course signalling to the city beforehand.
If people don't want their intersections blocked by crows of people day after day, then they should consider the extent to which their interests are compatible with the interests of the protesters, and if necessary and reasonable, consider joining the protesters to help them achieve their goal sooner. If seventy percent of the US population were protesting, the protests wouldn't last that long - unlike in Hong Kong.
This was your hypothetical, but it’s actually reality. Protest is protest. It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level.
[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-move...
That's just lawlessness.
There's not way to make up the rules as we go along, using the 'winds of the day' and what's happening on the news to determine what's a legit protest and what is not.
We do decide collectively what's what by using laws and policies. We make those, we make them clear, and then we apply them.
It seems as though you can't block traffic at a busy intersection 'because' - and so whatever the protest is today, it's not right.
We can't make up as we go along, that's chaos.
People can protest in parks, in front of city hall etc. - that works, it's peaceful and within civil framework.
You haven’t responded to my legal arguments and justifications. You are moving the goalposts and doubling down. Please keep on point or I will not have any substantial points to respond to.
When peaceful protests have failed to affect change and police brutality (especially for POC) is continuing unabated.
None of you have provided any reasonably objective definition of what could constitute an otherwise illegal, and sometimes violent protest.
These responses sound a lot like right-wing NRA 2cnd Amendment people barricading in buildings with guns and police surrounding them kind of rhetoric.
All three of the responses (at the time of my response) purport arbitrary definitions of self-determined, extra-judicial action - essentially vigilantism.
Literally, people inventing some cause and then taking over public property, sometimes causing damage, or worse.
If you accept your own definitions of 'legitimate cause' - I'm afraid you're really not going to like what a lot of other Americans would like to protest, just as violently.
If people are going to protest, especially when things can get violent, they're going to have to do so in a way that's not entirely disruptive -> like gather in a park, otherwise, it's just not going to work out.
We don't get to invent the law, no matter how passionate we are about something.
There are just a ton of better ways to create change that are totally within civil and legal framework, and there are many good examples to follow. And especially the rioting is probably counter-productive in almost every sense of the terms.
By your definition, black people using or destroying a whites-only bathroom as a form of protest would be off limits. I'd recommend some time away from the keyboard and do some reading about protest and the cultural history of same. As a very basic starting point, you might consider reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest in its entirety.
For example it is not up to the government to define what constitutes an acceptable peaceful protest.
When you get to the point where the government defines what is and what is not an acceptable protest then you no longer have a free democracy society.