please only make your voices ‘heard’ in the designated free speech zones.
It’s wild that these actually exist in some public places.
There’s one in the Mojave desert, one in northern Alaska, and one in Antartica, so that everyone is covered.
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.
Pretty good idea. Especially for larger companies where they have less of an argument that it was a mistake.
This would include ‘Freedom Convoy’ style trucker blockades too, right?
No, only peasants on foot trying to annoy our wheeled overlords and their owners.
Of course not. Freedom for me and not for thee.
I hope so
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
Good. Block ambulances -> go to jail. Plenty of legal ways to make your voice heard.
There’s I believe one example of that in the us and they were charged under the relevant currently existing law that makes willfully blocking emergency vehicles a crime.
So anyone in standstill traffic when an ambulance comes will go to jail? Or does this not apply if you’re in a car?
In my opinion, if you knowingly block or don’t have good faith in attempting to move away, it should be illegal.
Do you understand the difference between accidentally doing something wrong and being negligent and causing harm? Like you get that if I swing a bat around in my backyard and someone sneaks up behind me that is a lot different than if I swung a bat around in a crowded room?
Would you consider it negligent to drive somewhere you know is going to be busy, and therefore have potential to block an ambulance?
No.
What’s the difference between that and being at a protest that blocks a road?
Scale and intent and flexibility.
Scale: one car contributes almost nothing to a traffic jam
Intent: a person driving somewhere is trying to drive somewhere. A person abandoning their car or standing in the road is trying to, in the words of people ITT, “causing inconvenience” and getting people “angry”.
Flexibility: if you are in your car and see lights flashing you can at least try to get out of the way. If you have abandoned your car to cause a jam you can’t.
You really can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim you are trying to inconvenience people and bring attention to your pet cause while also claiming you are just doing what normal people are doing.
'Bout time. This isn’t free speech. If everyone with a grievance brought a city to a standstill, we’d have anarchy.
I fully support peaceful protesters with signs on the sidewalk even if I don’t with their cause. But their rights end when they infringe on others.
If people protest and it inconveniences or offends nobody, is it a protest?
While I think this style of protest is completely counterproductive and just pisses everyone off rather than bring them to your side, a felony for doing it is fucking insane. You can’t lump murder and standing in the road into the same category of offense.
If you can bring the city to a standstill with your grievance then someone should probably do something about the grievance before that mob removes the mayor by force.
Closing one road is not bringing a city to a standstill. We haven’t had true mass protests in the US in a long time.
If you think people’s rights are secondary to your commute, fuck your commute in particular.
You don’t have a right to commit crime. If they think their opinion is more important because they’re being the bigger asshole, fuck them in particular.
I think that guy, recently in the news, pleading with protesters so he wasn’t late to court would take issue if someone summed up the critically his life at the moment so dismissively as “a commute”.
People don’t stop their lives because someone throws a tantrum. You made it others problems; now the courts whom represent those affected will have a legal option.
If you want protests to stop, address the issues being protested.
You cheer for dogs and firehoses and rubber bullets and tear gas instead.
I don’t want all protests to stop. It’s a way to express your view publicly.
What does need to stop is the childish selfishness of this civel disobedience to forcibly impose your will over others. The cause doesn’t matter; civilized society can’t exist if every activist for every cause uses this to make a point.
I don’t want all protests to stop. It’s a way to express your view publicly.
You just don’t want them to be inconvenient. So you can ignore them. So nothing will change. Like you want.
What does need to stop is the childish selfishness of this civel disobedience to forcibly impose your will over others.
Yeah, who do people who want cops to stop shooting them think they are?
The cause doesn’t matter;
Certainly never to you. You love the status quo and never want it to change.
You just don’t want them to be inconvenient. So you can ignore them. So nothing will change. Like you want.
In my city, there is a guy with a megaphone shouting into traffic nearly every day. Annoying, but I support his right to be there. In another nearby, there is a section known for protests and signs every weekend with dozens of participants. I support their right to assemble. There is a diehard Trumper who absolutely plastered their front yard with signs. I recognize their right as an American. And I have written 3 letters to my local government this year. I have signed ballot initiatives brought forth by organizations I support. This is how you change a democracy.
Yeah, who do people who want cops to stop shooting them think they are?
That’s a great argument until you substitute in a cause you don’t support. Hmm, what would people be saying if some pro-January 6th-ers took over the bridge?
Certainly never to you. You love the status quo and never want it to change.
We’re always changing. It is natural. However, I refrain from emotional decisions and tend to break problems down to their cores. The “cause”, whatever it may be, is an emotional trigger employed to justify a course of illegal action. I am entirely unaffected. I have, instead, viewed this event from the perspective of rational logic. This is unacceptable behavior. Period.
Also, side note, thanks for the debate. I really enjoyed it, but I got to sleep. :)
That’s a great argument until you substitute in a cause you don’t support. Hmm, what would people be saying if some pro-January 6th-ers took over the bridge?
It happened in my town. Remember the Trump Trains? Blocked traffic for miles.
I get that you don’t like people wanting to do something effective that might draw attention to their cause and are trying to use trumpists as an excuse, but here’s the thing: Cops won’t enforce this consistently. Trumpists will still be allowed to march, but people cops disagree with won’t. I have no doubt that this is the only reason you support making protesters felons, nor do I think that this will stop with protests in the street.
We’re always changing.
And you’re fine with that as long as it keeps being for the worse and no one adds any minutes to your precious commute. You want to make people felons on the off chance that you might have to choose an alternate route one day. Your commute is not that important.
I am entirely unaffected.
Then act like it and stop supporting making protesting in a way that hurts your feelings a felony.
So when forced-birth activists block the road to an abortion clinic, then the best way to stop that is to address their issues?
There are already laws against harassment. We don’t need to make anyone who marches in the streets a felon.
I’m not talking about harassment. Simply protestors blocking all traffic on a street that has an abortion clinic.
Is it good for democracy when pregnant women can’t drive to their appointment?
While we’re at it, what about climate deniers blocking access to public chargers, thus stranding anyone using an EV?
Or right-wingers who block off access to bike lanes just to “pwn the libs.”
All of these have already happened, by the way. Were they good for democracy?
You’re making up hypotheticals that aren’t happening when the law is designed to silence civil rights protests.
Oh yes a tantrum. Let’s see what people have been blocking streets for lately.
- Genocide in Gaza
- Police killing unarmed people
- Chinese treatment of Uyghurs.
- Gun laws after Mass Shootings
Yup, just tantrums here. Nothing of substance at alllll.
You don’t have a right to drive so…
If everyone with a grievance brought a city to a standstill, we’d have anarchy.
If everyone made visible in the streets, the injustice that exists in our governance, we’d have democracy.
If everyone with a grievance brought the city to a standstill, we’d have anarchy.
Yes!! I hope so!
So you support people blocking pedestrians but you draw the line at cars?? Okay
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
Probably something about either how it affects them directly so that protest is bad. Also possibly about shipping
Fuck cars in general.
Trains, subways & trams please.
Also, I would not be surprised if the auto industry is who’s lobbying for this, people won’t buy cars if they have no where to drive.
That’s not really the point.
Imagine a world where we didn’t fuck up public transit and protesters stood in subway doors to block them, preventing the trains from running.
Still just free speech and should be allowed to continue?
Freedom of speech is not freedom to harass others and interrupt traffic.
This is a good thing.
That’s literally what it is but who would look to history when install they can rely on how they feel.
There is no effective protest without violence and property destruction, I invite you to find a single historical example otherwise.
Doesn’t that speak volumes about us? We’ve become a “two wrongs” society. And I don’t think we’ll ever change, sadly.
montgomery bus boycott
Bad example. There was tons of violence related to this boycott. There is always violence in a U.S. protest because conservatives insist upon it.
From Wikipedia:
King’s and Abernathy’s houses were firebombed, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked.
Two days after the inauguration of desegregated seating, someone fired a shotgun through the front door of Martin Luther King’s home. A day later, on Christmas Eve, white men attacked a black teenager as she exited a bus. Four days after that, two buses were fired upon by snipers. In one sniper incident, a pregnant woman was shot in both legs. On January 10, 1957, bombs destroyed five black churches and the home of Reverend Robert S. Graetz…
i thought you had meant violence from the protest itself not also the reaction to it
Without interruption what incentive does protest have to make change?
If you can’t get your message to others without being an asshole about it- you need to maybe remove yourself from any situation that involves others.
If you were around for the civil rights era, I know exactly what side of the sit-in movement you would be on.
Excuse me? Cops? Could you please stop killing people? Please? No? Okay then.
We’re talking about protesting messages, put the goalposts back please.
“black lives matter” is a message, wtf are you talking about then?
If your protest is blocking traffic, you’re an asshole. It’s not about WHAT you’re protesting. If cops are protesting and blocking traffic, they’re also assholes also.
shit take tbh
the only way to get shit done in this fucked up society is to cause disruptions. Otherwise, people will turn a blind eye
There isn’t an effective form of protest that doesn’t involve inconveniencing people.
Cops block traffic for illegitimate reasons all the fucking time
But what if your message is “can we all get along together please?” the other persons message is litteraly “you don’t deserve a vote, you don’t deserve equal rights, you don’t even deserve to drink the same water as me, you are not even legally a person, this is the law, get out of my face nigge* before the lynch mob arrives, because I won’t stop them”
How are you supposed to remove yourself from that situation when that situation is brought onto you, and there’s no way to simply negotiate or compromise because the two “opinions” are diametrically opposed.
If someone’s boot is on another person’s throat, I honestly don’t care if I sound like an asshole as I tell them to move their fucking boot. I’d rather be an asshole on the right side of history than a coward who was just following orders.
The problem is, you’re not being an asshole to the people that deserve you being an asshole to. You’re being an asshole to innocent people that have nothing to do with your issue.
Don’t block traffic because you’re pissed about social issues.
I do understand your point, but as a layperson there is no real way to single out your protest impact to only effect those directly responsible, especially when, in most cases, those directly responsible are removed from the community to a degree that there is little you could do to impact them without also impacting their innocent underpaid intern who’s just trying to do their job.
Yes, protesting impacts a bunch of people that can’t individually do anything and are therefore being inconvenienced (mildly or substantially, depending on the individual) for something they have no control over that is someone else’s fault.
But I think part of the reason you see it this way is due to a general a lack of solidarity. If I’m inconvenienced because my bus is stuck behind a protest, that sucks, but I’m not going to blame the protesters (unless I genuinely disagree with their requests/what they’re protesting) I’m going to blame the very same people the protesters are trying to reach, because they are the reason that petitions, inquires, public outcry and lobbying hasn’t worked and now we’re at a stage of protest.
It might push a few of us to get off the bus and join the protest because what else can we do. It might prompt someone to write into their local representatives to push them to hurry up and sign negotiations so the protest can end because they’re sick of the slow bus.
There’s no such thing as someone that has “nothing to do with the issue” when the issue impacts us as a society. If you feel like a social issue has nothing to do with you, but the protests around it are impacting you, you have to ask yourself what you’re gaining from the current system, and what stands to be gained from the changes demanded by the protesters. If you genuinely think you have nothing to do with it, you might be a true hermit.
