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No-one disputes that protests like those seen in the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Iraq War opposition, the Arab Spring, the gay

No-one disputes that protests like those seen in the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Iraq War opposition, the Arab Spring, the gay rights movement etc are extremely valuable and necessary. Where people object is where justifiable protest switches to ugly mob behaviour, including things like looting of innocent business operators, indiscriminate violence and vandalism, etc , just like what happened in Tottenham. Mob behaviour, by definition, is where people stop thinking critically about issues and blindly follow whatever their peers are doing. This can never be beneficial. Independent, critical thought is essential for positive change to be effected. The problem with the modern Social Justice Warrior movement is that it is counter to the interests of true social justice, as the people who need the most protection are the smallest minorities, and these are the people who lose out the most when everyone is banding together in mobs and deliberately shutting silencing debate and individual expression. Meanwhile, the "social justice warriors" are far too busy focusing on how moral they seem rather than how much real social justice they're achieving. If your response is - as I would hope - that true campaigners for social justice are not like this, then that's ok - they're not the ones being criticised.

gizmo 11y ago
Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified. I draw the line at hurting people, which is never justified. I'm not outraged at property damage when people protest racism or police brutality, because I value people more than I value things. As for your claim that rioting and the like can never be beneficial, that's plainly wrong. Take for instance the Curaçao uprising in 1969 [1]. Workers protested wage discrimination and it turned into a mob that burned down 43 businesses and 10 other buildings, primarily those owned by white people. Guess what? The protest was a complete success, they got the wage they asked for and they got new democratic elections to boot. I reiterate: people protest and riot because it works. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising
- tomhoward 11y ago
  Yeah I'm with you. But you know sometimes people protest because they're upper-middle class brats with a raging sense of entitlement, and they see some middle-ranking international trade conference with an agenda they know nothing about, as an excuse to rip down street signs and smash them through shop windows, or roll ballbearings under the hooves of police horses, just because they can.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  "Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified." No, it really isn't. Quite aside from the immoral way you have just cheerfully sacrificed strangers' homes and livelihoods in the name of your transient political goals, looting and rioting leads to businesses and productive citizens leaving and a collapse of the local economy. Go to Detroit if you want to see how that works out in the long run. Incidentally, even if somehow rioting is okay as long as just people of the appropriate skin color are the ones being harmed, perhaps you should keep in mind that the folks who start businesses in low-income areas of American cities tend to be either local black people or immigrants. That's who suffers when buildings get burned down in the name of "justice."

gizmo 11y ago

Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified. I draw the line at hurting people, which is never justified. I'm not outraged at property damage when people protest racism or police brutality, because I value people more than I value things. As for your claim that rioting and the like can never be beneficial, that's plainly wrong. Take for instance the Curaçao uprising in 1969 [1]. Workers protested wage discrimination and it turned into a mob that burned down 43 businesses and 10 other buildings, primarily those owned by white people. Guess what? The protest was a complete success, they got the wage they asked for and they got new democratic elections to boot. I reiterate: people protest and riot because it works. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising

tomhoward 11y ago
Yeah I'm with you. But you know sometimes people protest because they're upper-middle class brats with a raging sense of entitlement, and they see some middle-ranking international trade conference with an agenda they know nothing about, as an excuse to rip down street signs and smash them through shop windows, or roll ballbearings under the hooves of police horses, just because they can.
13thLetter 11y ago
"Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified." No, it really isn't. Quite aside from the immoral way you have just cheerfully sacrificed strangers' homes and livelihoods in the name of your transient political goals, looting and rioting leads to businesses and productive citizens leaving and a collapse of the local economy. Go to Detroit if you want to see how that works out in the long run. Incidentally, even if somehow rioting is okay as long as just people of the appropriate skin color are the ones being harmed, perhaps you should keep in mind that the folks who start businesses in low-income areas of American cities tend to be either local black people or immigrants. That's who suffers when buildings get burned down in the name of "justice."