Traffic Blockade Protests Were a Nuisance. Lawmakers Want to Make Them a Felony.
Traffic Blockade Protests Were a Nuisance. Lawmakers Want to Make Them a Felony.
“Taking to the streets is a core part of our right to protest.”
Key take away
To Kavanagh, the crime wasn’t just about blocking traffic. It was “steal[ing] hours of [people’s] lives away.”
Hot Take: If Kavanagh feels so strongly about this. Then make wage theft a felony because it is literally stealing people's time and it's a far larger problem than a few blocking a road.
Hell hath no fury like white people mildly inconvenienced
"Lawmakers" don't want this, "corporate interests funding lawmakers" want this
Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of people socially murdered by US/EPA negligence. Those people were interrupted from going to their jobs and making money for rich twats. Don't people know that's so much more important than *checks notes... you getting cancer in your thirties?
No one stands in the way of the almighty car
To everyone saying that this shouldn't be a protected form of protest, explain why blocking traffic is bad, but this wasn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sit-in_movement
I'm all for people protesting wherever they need to. But roads are not safe. Period. "Drivers should just stop and turn around!" Well, yeah, they should. But if someone doesn't, a lot of people get hurt. Don't use your body in a metal cage fight. You'll lose every time. So if you chose to protest in the street, just be aware of the risks.
I've seen photos of kids at roadblock protests. That's super fucked up. Kids and dogs don't belong at any protests, let alone ones focused on civil disobedience or whatever you may choose to call it.
This comment isn't about "muh commute!" It's about irresponsible organizers putting people in harms way.
I was absolutely baffled by the downvote brigade in this thread, who see no qualms with blocking traffic as a form of protest, so I tried to find some numbers as to what non Lemmy users think of this kind of protest, and not surprisingly, it turns out that people are overwhelmingly against it.
The best statistics article I could find in my short search: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/47565-american-opinion-portest-tactics-acceptability
So for the USA at least, 80% of polled People considered blocking traffic usually/always unacceptable, while only 11% were usually/always ok with it.
Lemmy users on average really do hold some fringe opinions, which makes me wonder about the demographics of the users on here :)
I 100% support the right to peaceful protest. I wish we had more protests. There are so many things that really need protesting, and I mean big large scale protest like back in the days of MLK with a million people marching down the National Mall. A big part of the point of protest is to get people to join your side. Stopping traffic is like throwing spray paint in an art museum. It turns people against you. Whether it should be legal or not, it's a really dumb protest tactic.
You want to protest against cars? Fine. But if you do that by blocking the road, you just create more pollution from everybody sitting in traffic. And I promise not one of those people sitting in traffic is going to ever think that your cause is legitimate after that. They are going to hate you and everything you stand for.
The right to protest is important, but there have to be limitations. If you stage a protest where you commit crimes to disproportionately harm other people, then there have to be consequences.
Proportionality is important: if there's a protest march with tens of thousands of people just walking from one place to another place, then obviously traffic will be a massive clusterfuck, with thousands of other ordinary people stuck in traffic. But if your protest can only get a few dozen people together and you set about creating the same amount of traffic gridlock, that's something that can only be achieved by doing stupid shit and then there have to be consequences.
If you can't even get enough people together for your protest to not have enough space when walking on the sidewalk, then you should not be protesting in the road and hindering thousands of other people. Apart from how disproportionate it is that a few dozen people want to hold thousands hostage for hours, a protest like that also has the reverse effect and it creates loads of antipathy.
Climate action is very important to me and I do believe that we are not doing nearly enough to address it, but I hate those ludicrous climate protests, where there's a handful of protesters blocking roads. Those pricks generate so much antipathy and they do nothing to explain to the general public of how important climate action is. Those people are classic self righteous pricks with a holier than thou attitude and they are just making things worse for everyone.