I don’t think blocking up and honking in a random city where the politicians don’t actually live will do all that much, just expressing frustration at other citizens who have done nothing to harm them. I think those citizens in turn are right to be angry and upset and feel they are being disrupted because they are. I don’t begrudge them this and I don’t think it has anything to do with social betters or not. Having spoken to folks who live there, it apparently really is super disruptive, one person reportedly couldn’t get chemo because of the disruption.

Not many of us up here are too concerned with American protests and quotes from American politicians. I don't mean to take anything away from them - just that I'm not sure how applicable they are here. Most Canadians I know (whether on the left or right of the political spectrum) would find those quotes from AOC and Waters to be profoundly un-Canadian. I realize I don't know everyone and can't speak for everything, though.

The BLM protest in Ottawa showed up, stayed peaceful, protested, and left. As did all of the many protests I saw while living in downtown Ottawa.

I have friends living in the area still and they were subjected to a sleepless week of harassment by damagingly loud train horns and people giving them shit for choosing to wear a mask.

That's not a peaceful protest. It's not just discomfort. It's a crime. And the fact they're behaving better now doesn't erase their past behaviour. I think that having a discussion on ending mandates is fine. It's a good time for that.

But I also want to see them face legal consequences for their behaviour toward the innocent citizens of Centretown. And I don't like how they tried to blackmail the government into making changes by hurting their fellow citizens. I think that is undemocratic.

In the US it was "silence is violence", but I guess in Canada its "honking is violence"?

Honking regular horns? No. Annoying, but not violent.

These were train horns that were well over 100db outside and still over 80db inside people's apartments. Loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. So yes, if you're doing something that can cause lasting damage, it's violence.

There's a wide gulf between honking loudly enough to annoy and honking loudly enough to injure. It's really not that hard to not cross it, but they did, for days on end.

As I said - they seem to be behaving better now. Maybe it's petty and vindictive, but I don't think it's okay to just let that kind of thing pass without consequences for the perpetrators.

That’s a lot of rhetoric but not a lot of substance. My position is an extremely milquetoast “people are allowed to be upset when upsetting things happen to them; this doesn’t make them elitist”.

> their social betters need beauty sleep

I bet some of the people they were tormenting are anti-vaxxers themselves. Everyone gets annoyed if you keep them awake all night, every night.