I'm not a fan of the truckers (the loud horns were totally infuriating) but the fundamental problem was that the police didn't want to move them on, not that they were breaking the law.
All movements start small, and if you want to have your movement be a success it involves bringing more and more people over to your point of view / side.
One can be disruptive in that you hold a rally or march to raise awareness, and be seen (in numbers) by folks on the street. Marches / parades are disruptive to traffic but if you've planned it and told people about it then they can plan around it. One can also go in, cause some trouble, and then disperse so that you get in the news but also do not piss of non-involved people.
But being disruptive so that you piss people off is a way to not get more people onto your side of your movement. It is a way to inhibit further involvement of the public towards your side.
A movement must be aware of how its actions are perceived by non-members of the movement. Just because you interpret things a certain way does not mean that the general public won't view you as a jackass:
> “It’s a sign of independence,” he said. “I look at it as a rebel sign. In the biker community, a lot of people have the Confederate flag because we’re rebels.”
> But to many, the flag is a racist symbol and a disturbing reminder of the U.S. Confederacy’s fight to preserve slavery. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced their display at the Ottawa protest, saying his government wouldn’t give in to “racist flags.”
* https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/freedom-convoy-supporter-says-...
I don't know which "biker community" this guy is talking about, but as a motorcyclist I don't view the Confederate flag positively.
While I agree to some extent with your comment, I think there is some nuance needed. For a movement to succeed you need to be disruptive and piss some people off. It just depends in what way disruptive and who you piss off.
For example take the women’s rights movements. Were they disruptive and did poss a lot of people off? Hell yeah they did. Did they ultimately succeed and get the public opinion on their side. Also yes.
Another (horrifying) example is the nazi movement. They were extremely disruptive and pissed off a ton of people when they were still an extreme fringe group. Precisely because of that they became very successful.
There are many more examples like that. A protest movement needs to be disruptive to some extent to be successful
I for one am glad that women and black people didn't take it too seriously.
You may want to read some MLK - he had some very clear words about the liberal who demands civility in the face of oppression.
It is not about acting civilly. It is about messaging.
If non-movement people consider you as a bunch of jackasses, do you think they will join your cause, or even have sympathy towards it? You need to communicate your message—words and actions—so that, at the very least, people will have a neutral opinion. If you're actually good, then people will have a positive opinion of you and your goals.
> Days later, King was quietly bailed out and ejected from prison by Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett, who had studied the nonviolence protest method and released King to undermine it. In other cities, violence by police against peaceful demonstrators brought outcry and sympathy. But Pritchett met nonviolence with nonviolence. Within weeks, the protest fizzled out. For King, Albany was largely a failure, and his takeaway was for the movement to better pick its spots.
[…]
> It was far from total victory, but King had something more important: the attention of an outraged and rapt nation. The legacy of the water cannons and dogs, of callused feet and imprisoned children, would be incarnated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which banned poll taxes. Montgomery and Birmingham also formed the script for peaceably countering injustice in a nation founded on protest. From antiwar protests during Vietnam to Occupy Wall Street and beyond, King’s commitment to nonviolent protest lives on.
* https://time.com/5101740/martin-luther-king-peaceful-protest...
It is why violence is usually such a bad idea: most non-members of a movement don't want to get into that, and would probably see the movement as a bunch of thugs. In a survey of 600 movements since 1900, Chenoweth et al found that those that used violence were successful ~25% of the time, but non-violence had a >40% success rate.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...
* https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2021-1...
* https://www.hks.harvard.edu/behind-the-book/erica-chenoweth-...
* https://www.peacejusticestudies.org/chronicle/review-of-civi...
You almost double your chances of success by gaining sympathy versus 'acting out'. Do you think the race riots helped or hindered the civil rights movement?
> Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
* https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
If you want to actually achieve your goal(s) then non-violence and public opinion are important things to consider.
Lots of people claimed that anyone who didn't respect lockdowns and wear masks were being "violent" - is that what you're trying to do here?
> If you're actually good, then people will have a positive opinion of you and your goals.
Lol. I really don't know how anyone could say that with a straight face. Was MLK popular with people who thought segregation was cool and fun?
Or is your argument that he was wrong to act as he did...
Is Trump "actually good" because people love him?
That logic ain't logicing man. Idk where you got that idea but it isn't explaining reality very well is it.
Do you want your movement to succeed? If yes, then don't piss off the non-members / the general public, and try to get them on your side.
That is what MLK understood and did.
That is what Nelson Mandela did not understand when he was young (when he did acts that caused him to go to jail), but did understand when he was older.
It is also what Ghandi (who also spent in jail) understood.
You are quoting from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", which also states:
> In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.
* https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
The convoy did not do the first three steps, or if they did, they did not effectively show the public that they did.
From my perspective (or "my truth" as the kids are wont to say these days) they were a bunch of anti-vaxxers railing against da gubermint.
> In August 1963, Gallup found considerable public opposition to the now-famous civil rights march on Washington in which King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. The poll was conducted about two weeks before the march, at which time 71% were familiar with "the proposed mass civil rights rally to be held in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28." Of those who were familiar, only 23% said they had a favorable view of "the rally"; 42% had an unfavorable view of it (including 7% who predicted violence would occur) and 18% said it wouldn't accomplish anything. [0]
[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/103828/civil-rights-progress-se...
— or now:
> What is also clear is that sympathy with the movement is no longer at a point where the minority, which has been categorized as being on the fringes, is grossly overshadowed by the majority. A sizeable minority of Canadians (37%) agree (16% strongly/21% somewhat) that while they might not say it publicly, they agree with a lot of what the truck protestors are fighting for [1]
[1] https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/nearly-half-say-they-...
Oh, wait, no, they voluntarily sacrificed their freedom and were arrested, beaten, and tortured for their beliefs. I guess you're confused.
So did MLK.
Lol.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34537163 (Jan 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22904111 (April 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22114100 (Jan 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19449785 (March 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233901 (Oct 2018)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16783015 (April 2018)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278148 (May 2017)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10780427 (Dec 2015)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9985956 (Aug 2015)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8825352 (Jan 2015)
That's excessive and abusive. We need you, same as any other user, to follow the site guidelines regardless of how right you are or feel you are, and regardless of how wrong others are or you feel they are.
I appreciate your substantive posts but it's also the case that you've been posting abusively in totally other contexts (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40759689). If you keep this up we're going to have to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this, that would be good.
Don't want flame wars? Don't post flamewar-inciting links, as many of those arguably are, then object selectively when some people take the bait you're dangling.
That's not how HN works. Commenters are responsible for how they react and whether or not they follow the rules. It's not as if you have zero choice in whether you get incited or not, although I know it sometimes feels that way (to me too).
To remove an entire topic to prevent some commenters from posting abusively would be to punish the ones who are following the rules just fine. I don't think that's how HN should operate. Here's another recent post in case it's of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40852027
Of course, not every story is on topic for HN, and indeed most provocative stories aren't—but that's a separate question. Some are, and the rules still apply in those cases. In fact, they apply especially then, as the guidelines make clear: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
I don't think they actually did hold that strategic position (if the police had, you know, done their jobs, they wouldn't be blocking the roads for long), but if you know that the police won't do that (because they always baby right wing protestors) it makes some sense. And that was a lot of the rhetoric from the truckers about themselves: I guess we'd just come out of the pandemic with all these sudden realizations about essential workers, which definitely included truckers, and there's often (but probably not in the trucker's case) a connection between being 'essential' and 'occupying a strategically advantageous position'.
And yet various organizations that represent truckers, both organized unions and independents, distanced themselves from the convoy:
* https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/embarrassment-for-the-industry...
* https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canadian-trucking-...
* https://teamster.org/2022/02/teamsters-denounce-freedom-conv...
If the convoy was anything but a bunch of anti-vaxxers, they failed to really convey that message from my perspective.
> And that was a lot of the rhetoric from the truckers about themselves: I guess we'd just come out of the pandemic with all these sudden realizations about essential workers […]
I have first-hand knowledge of essential workers because of family connections to nursing and retail (food/groceries). I also have family connections to people who actually run trucking companies, and do maintenance on rigs.
I personally got deemed an essential worker by my company because of my IT role, and got a letter on company letterhead stating as such for any time I had to come into the office, in case I should perhaps be stopped for breaking curfew (the organization I was with had connections with medical treatment).
I don't think anyone would reasonably deny truckers are often essential, but the number of truckers making a fuss about was a tiny majority that worked in the industry.
Convicted in a court of law, I assume?
Innocent before proven guilty and all that.
They were protestors until they started living on the streets, at which point they became occupiers (CC §63(1)):
* https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/protesters-build-wooden-structure-...
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-truck-convoy-pr...
* https://pressprogress.ca/photos-show-young-child-with-a-gas-...
When ordered to disperse they did not, which now goes into disobeying lawful police orders.
And if I was a resident of Ottawa, I doubt I would have considered 24/7 honking and the generation of noise "peaceful" (CC §31).
* https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/angela-hewitt-play...
If you want your movement to succeed and goals achieve your goals you need to get the public on your side, not piss them off and consider you inconsiderate jackasses.
Also: is shutting an international border crossing (bridge), which affects the commutes and livelihood (via supply chains) of thousands of people every day, "peaceful"?
* https://ccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Know-Your-Rights...
Was Occupy Wallstreet illegit?
Obviously there is a fine line between legitimate, legal protest and it should be taken very seriously. IMO that particular protest pushed that line too hard.
Calling downtown near the Parliament buildings "the most affluent areas around the nation's capital" is pretty hilarious.
The Glebe, Sandy Hill, Rockliffe, Island Park, etc.. All those parts of Ottawa's core have always been more afluent than the downtown by the Parliament.
The rise of new condos in that area has probably improved it somewhat in the last 10 years but it's still far from "afluent".
- "Oh my point was proven wrong but I'm going to stick to it anyways? Because fact shmacts?"
Your whole argument was that the convoy was shut down because it inconvenienced the wealthy locals.. Which is completely not what happened.
It's ok to say you were wrong.
>The stuff they were protesting was very real, and those measures specifically caused disruption to hundreds of thousands of people's lives and sleep for months on end. The government turning to wartime measures so that privileged Ottawans living in ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ affluent areas around the nation's capital can withstand a few honks for a few weeks is absolutely preposterous.
>Mac: Okay…that seems really dark though.
>Dennis: No, no, it’s not dark. You’re misunderstanding me, bro.
>Mac: I think I am.
>Dennis: Yeah, you are. ‘Cause if the girl said no, then the answer obviously is no. The thing is that she’s not gonna say no, she’d never say no…because of the implication.
>Mac: Now, you said that word “implication” a couple of times. What implication?
>Dennis: The implication that things might go wrong for her if she refuses to sleep with me. Now, not that things are gonna go wrong for her, but she’s thinking that they will.
The Emergencies Act has nothing to do with war:
* §3 For the purposes of this Act, a* national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or, (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada, and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
* https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html
Was the "health or safety of Canadians" at risk? Did it "exceed the capacity or authority of a province" (Ontario under Ford)?
The Act mandates an inquiry be called after any invocation, and the inquiry in question found that the use of the Act was justified:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commiss...
War is the obvious example that meets 3(a) and 3(b), because the Emergencies Act replaced the War Measures Act, which was designed to give the government wide latitude for authoritarian actions desired in wartime.
>The Act mandates an inquiry be called after any invocation, and the inquiry in question found that the use of the Act was justified:
The inquiry in question (led by a longstanding party member) found reluctantly:
* I do not come to this conclusion easily, as I do not consider the factual basis for it to be overwhelming. Reasonable and informed people could reach a different conclusion than the one I have arrived at. [1]
In part, because the definition you cited is not the entry point for the federal proclamation, which is actually at s.16 of the act:
* §16 In this Part, declaration of a public order emergency means a proclamation issued pursuant to subsection 17(1); public order emergency means an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada and that is so serious as to be a national emergency; threats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act.
Even though the Canadian government was told by CSIS at the time:
* Canada's intelligence agency didn't believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security according to the definition in its enabling law [2]
And comparatively, the last time this level of power was invoked domestically it was in response to separatist terrorism culminating in the murder of a government official. [3]
>Was the "health or safety of Canadians" at risk? Did it "exceed the capacity or authority of a province" (Ontario under Ford)?
The criteria is not just "at risk" but "seriously endangered". The commission's report, in my opinion, takes a tortured approach to justifying the meeting of this threshold.
[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/public-order-emergenc...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/convoy-protest-emergencies-...
[3] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/october-cr...
I can tell you're already very convinced of who was right and wrong in this and you're trying to make this a left vs right thing, but there are limits to how many problems you can cause when you protest - no matter the cause - before civil society (via it's police force and/or government) says "ok, that's enough".
Either that, or civil society sides with you, and then major change happens.
And I guess no one wanted to side with the COVID-denying racists.
Can you elaborate why it is "and/or government". Why is it acceptable that the government by-pass the normal legal system in dealing with protestors?
To be fair, I do come from a Swedish perspective. Historically we had a fairly painful event in 1931 when the government did that and sent the military to do the job of the police in order to break a protest. The outcome was the death of several protestors, and some major political consensus to never again use military against protestors. In 2001 there was again a major protests, and just for the fact that some politicians started to suggest the use of military force, laws was drafted and put in place to explicitly forbid the government from ever using military force against protestors. If protestors break the law, you send the police to catch and jail them. If there isn't enough police, you get more.
I'm not going to debate whether it was legal or not with you because (I'm assuming) neither of us are lawyers.
I'll say that I don't particularly agree with the bank account shenanigans they pulled, but they only did that because the Ottawa police force completely failed to do their job in dealing with the blockade.
I definitely don't like the precedent that was set, but having seen the blockade first hand (it was not a "peaceful protest", it was an aggressive encampment that was regularly threatening to passerbys and locals) and the impact it had on the area - my parents live nearby - they had to do something.
I support the rights of citizens to protest but as I said, there's a limit.
The question I was after is if the concept is ever moral or reasonable to deal with protestors with methods outside the legal system. Common methods are the military, but also martial law, suspending bank accounts (without a court decision), and other methods.
Current in Sweden we had recent several demonstrations that lead to riots, and historically we had major ones including one that lead to several demonstrators getting shot. Every single time, researchers and government investigations has found that using anything other than the regular legal system is counter productive, and in some cases very deadly. If the police don't do their job you get more police from other regions. In a event just a few months ago, they even got police from nearby countries to help (despite massive demonstrations and influx of tourists, crime went significant down during that period).
In general, the problem of police not doing their job seems to stem from when they are afraid. Either because of being extremely outnumbered, or in combination with poor instruction (with can lead to being afraid of doing mistakes in a political hot situation). Both are problems that can be solved by politicians without going outside the framework of the legal system.
Why didn't the government shut down these protestors bank accounts?
I will say that First Nations issues in Canada are pretty complicated, particularly when it comes to unceded territories and the rights around those.
It's also worth mentioning that those rail line blockades in Ontario were done in support of other protests in BC where the government eventually sent cops in riot gear to dismantle the blockades by violence.
Something that didn't happen in Ottawa, and I'll let you figure out why.
The Ottawa police did the exact same thing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/world/canada/canada-truck...
Have you seen videos or pictures of the protestors? They were all different races, there wasn't an ounce of "racism" anywhere in there.
I don't need to see "videos or pictures" I saw it with my own eyes, many times.
I saw first hand the confederate flags, the screamed slurs at passerbys, the aggressive racist-coded chants and associated violent rhetoric..
One night my mom got screamed at by a drunken asshole waving a big confederate flag, she was shaking so badly she didn't sleep that night..
So your hearsay "there wasn't an ounce of racism anywhere in there" can take a hike.
You don't get to do that to other people. Not in my idea of a civil society.
[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...
Truckers take over the city and make life a living hell for thousands of innocent residents? Lock their bank accounts and starve them out, and (ideally) prosecute the perpetrators alongside anyone who donated to them.
Soldiers raping and killing civilians? Blow them to kingdom come if possible (it's a war, after all). Otherwise, identify them, convene a tribunal after the war, and hang those found guilty.
FA, FO.
If someone is non-violent protesting in a location they arent allowed to be, the appropriate response it to arrest and move them, not lock their bank accounts and starve their families.
Locking someone in a cell and keeping them awake for the purpose if inflicting suffering is torture. Making noise so that someone in the freedom of their own home has to put ear plugs in is not.
conflating them ignores the clear differences and stretches the meaning of the word. You might as well say an ice cream display in the super market is torture.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Yes, the other commenter was also breaking the site guidelines and I've responded to them elsewhere.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Yes, the other commenter was also breaking the site guidelines and I've responded to them elsewhere.)
The city of Ottawa's law enforcement officers were ordered to remove the protesters weeks before the federal government stepped in. The cops basically just didn't do their job. The emergency act was not invoked lightly.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
The other commenter was breaking the site guidelines too, but in a different way, and I've responded to them also.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note this one:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
and this one:
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
The right to protest and speech does not include a right to break the law.
The fundamental problem with the Canadian bank response is that it was not proportional, broke convention, and did not fit the crime.
If someone is trespassing, you arrest and remove them.
Government have incredible power they can wield, but convention is that they do not use it to force compliance in every circumstance.
You not only started it, you appear to have done the most to perpetuate it. That's seriously not ok. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40852451.
(And yes, the same thing should have happened to the CHOP occupiers, if they were receiving outside support.)