Where I live BLM protesters ransacked a grocery store, looted a mall, lit a truck on fire, robbed a jewelry store, smashed windows, fought with the police and threatened people. I personally witnessed all of these events, and walked through the debris of their vandalism for days. Stores here had boarded up windows for weeks afterwards.

Granted, it didn't last as long as the trucker protest, but I feel like it's at least in the same ballpark.

The BLM protests had stronger state resistance because they caused millions in property damage and at least a dozen deaths. So yeah it’s not the same at all.

*billions

The property damage was mostly malls and stores, which I’m sure you know, is what people were using to work and get paid.

And it’s not just “property damage” - they burnt those businesses to the fucking ground.

> they burnt those businesses to the fucking ground.

Sometimes with people inside them:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/21/us/minneapolis-protest-bo...

PS why did GP get flagged? My views arent fully aligned with his but I don't think he wrote anything unacceptable. @dang can you review?

If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30329197, comments like that violate the site guidelines in many ways and so are correctly flagged.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If it bothers you that thousands of people are not working or getting paid, wait till you learn what Western governments did in 2020.

> Other protests were met with stronger state resistance.

> It’s fucking disturbing to see people equate BLM protests with what’s happening here. It’s not the same.

Other protests met with stronger state resistance also also involved more aggressive protest behavior. Rights to free speech and assembly have very specific legal boundaries, but that boundary isn't defined by the level of inconvenience felt by the locals.

Yes parking trucks and gathering thousands of protestors in one city has both economic and social impacts, but I have yet to see any legitimate reports of a pattern of violence, destruction, or intimidation.

The city recommended that restaurants in the area close, and on at least one occasion the government was also attempting to have all hotel reservations in the city cancelled. If economic impact on Ottawa was the primary concern, why was no one calling for the government to stop interfering with local businesses that could have provided their services to the protestors?

> yet to see any legitimate reports of a pattern of violence, destruction, or intimidation.

Is this a bit? Really? People can’t leave their houses in masks lest they be followed and harassed by the occupiers. The Happy Goat coffee shop had a brick thrown in its front window (where a pride flag hangs) 400 meters from the main Ottawa Police station. Emergency vehicles are being blocked. A woman walking to work at Mu Shu was sexually assaulted. That’s just off the top of my head.

Kindly shove it.

Honking 120 decibel horns through the night for weeks is not inconvenience. It’s clear you don’t live here.

Please do not cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong or ignorant someone else is or you feel they are. It's clear that you have legit reasons to feel strongly about this, but that doesn't make it ok to break the rules here (if it did, that alone would be sufficient to destroy this place, since many people have legit reasons for strong feelings on many topics). You've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30329197). That's not cool.

Also, it's not in your interests to post this way, because it discredits the position you're arguing for. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Edit: also, we've had to ask you not to do this in the past, long before the current topic became a thing (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27319713).

Protests happen when the majority starts to repress the minority.

Democracy isn’t dictatorship of the majority. It’s supposed to be about compromise and respecting individuals while the majority makes decisions.

The losers of every “election” or people who aren’t represented by the governing party have a right to protest to make their voices heard.

Perhaps undermining democracy is an overstatement, I meant undermining those in power for the minority.

What I’ve just written I think applies both to the goals and vision of BLM and anti vaccine mandate protestors, interestingly.

The BLM riots were applauded and supported by huge portions of the American political and media class, including Kamala Harris who encouraged people to donate to the rioters' bail funds.

Multiple people were killed at CHAZ in Seattle and the organizer of that insurrection (which was as close to the dictionary definition of an insurrection as they come) suffered no legal consequences and is now selling T-shirts.

You call that "state resistance"?

Everyone knows protests are only legitimate if they have significant corporate sponsorship and the full-throated support of prominent politicians and celebrities in the entertainment industry.

Hey, I was there. You were lied to when you got reports of 'the violence and chaos and rioters', I know this because I got a call from my grandmother worried I might be near the war zone.

Oh, unless the violence you are referring to was the tear gassing from cops. There was a shit ton of that.

Riots are the language of the unheard

Canadian truckers are 97% peaceful! And it doesn't matter that they're disrupting Ottowa business because those businesses have insurance.