Pants-of-dog wrote:I was, instead, pointing out that people often end up doing things like blocking traffic because they are not allowed to protest in any other effective way.
They're allowed to voice their opinion peacefully in any way they choose. Hundreds of thousands have peacefully taken to the streets and politicians have listened re: police abuse.
You don't need to block traffic to get your opinions heard. Greta Thunberg is not blocking traffic. If you need to block traffic (or burn buildings) to try to force people to do what you want, that's a form of coercion and extortion. Protestors are able to make that choice if that's the tactic they choose, but must also be prepared to suffer the consequences of their actions, like being arrested or fined. If they care that much about an issue to risk and suffer that, then hey respect & hats off to them. Gandhi, MLK, Nelson Mandela were fined, arrested, jailed etc in their struggles for justice and I greatly respect them for their courage.
What I don't agree with in places like Portland is the city won't enforce the law or lay charges on rioters doing illegal acts that violate the rights of others, often innocent people. Again, If you destroy property as a means of protest that's your choice, you have free will, but you should also have to suffer the consequences of your actions, otherwise everyone can destroy and loot whatever they want, and chaos/anarchy ensues...as we've seen in Portland.
Even cops have been caught spreading the now infamous memes celebrating and condoning these attacks.
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These cops should be fired.
Best way to defund the police is to fire any cop that abuses their power and/or does disgustingly unprofessional things, because there won't be many cops left after that! That's a lot of money saved in payroll.