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This is the risk in protesting. Authorities have never been nice to protestors. Protesting has always carried the risk of assault and the loss of livelihood,

This is the risk in protesting. Authorities have never been nice to protestors. Protesting has always carried the risk of assault and the loss of livelihood, wealth, freedom, or life. So before protesting, you need to ask yourself if what your protesting for is worth it. The state is fucking powerful. After all, the state is the one in charge of checking the state's power. If you piss off enough people, or merely the wrong people, you may discover that your rights only extend so far as other people are willing to protect them. The difference here is that most protestors are punished via ass-kicking, seizure of personal belongings, a few nights being humiliated in a jail cell, and a bunch of fines. The people whose lives were interrupted by this are pissed off and out for blood. And Trudeau is going to give it to them, and be heralded as a hero while doing so. Especially after the perceived police incompetence in the matter (by failing to dole out the standard ass-kicking-jail-fine punishment).

tistoon 5y ago
I tend to disagree. In democracy, the people is the state and, in extent, has the power. The government (elected people in place) is only temporary.
- beardedetim 5y ago
  I agree with you on paper but have a really hard time viewing my current relationship with any State as that of which I have power. Nor do I see myself with any _limited State_ having any power. Nor do I see myself as having _any_ ability to legally inflict harm to others as the State has power to do. I totally agree that democracy on paper says the People have control but I am not seeing that play out at any real scale.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  In a lot of countries, "the people are the state" is only nominally true. Special interests often carry the day, and anyway in a partisan environment devoid of principles we need to protect against moments of passion where a 51% majority can infringe on the rights of 49% (or in my country, a largely elite 10%--which helms universities and media institutions and so on--can use the state to push their ideology on the other 90%).
sleepingadmin 5y ago
>This is the risk in protesting. Authorities have never been nice to protestors. Protesting has always carried the risk of assault and the loss of livelihood, wealth, freedom, or life. So before protesting, you need to ask yourself if what your protesting for is worth it. This act has never been used before, it's predecessor was used only during serious war. This act being used against legitimate protest and then going forward banning all protest? Like say you want to protest the government based on one side of the Ukraine war? You can't, that's illegal. Say you want to go cover those illegal protests and report on it as a journalist? That's illegal. >Especially after the perceived police incompetence in the matter (by failing to dole out the standard ass-kicking-jail-fine punishment). The police couldn't touch the protest for weeks not because of inaction but because your right to protest is a human right. They required the national emergency to remove our right to protest in order to label the protest illegal.
- pylon 5y ago
  >The police couldn't touch the protest for weeks not because of inaction but because your right to protest is a human right. They required the national emergency to remove our right to protest in order to label the protest illegal. So you are saying under Canadian law, if you protest and do something illegal like blocking roads, destroying property, etc then Canadian police can't do anything? So if I go back in history and look at other protests in Canada like the ones against the pipelines for example, then I will see that the police didn't act against them?
  - Banana699 5y ago
    >you protest and do something illegal like blocking roads Any protest of any respectable size will block the roads it chooses to march in, every climate change protest and every gay pride blocks the roads, never see people complaining about those. >destroying property What is the property that was destroyed by the protest in question?
    - tekstar 5y ago
      > Any protest of any respectable size will block the roads it chooses to march in, every climate change protest and every gay pride blocks the roads, never see people complaining about those. Ottawa gets protests for left- and right- wing causes on a weekly basis. One of the biggest protests we see is a yearly "bus all the catholic school children to parliament hill to protest abortion", and it goes by without a hitch every year. Anyways, protests last for maybe an afternoon or day or two at most and involve people standing on parliament hill or marching around the downtown core, not blockading the city core and constantly harassing the people who live there for multiple weeks.
desireco42 5y ago
True but people should be able to protest and make politicians uncomfortable, which is what happened here. If we can't hear the other side, we go down quickly.
- dataminer 5y ago
  Absolutely people have right to protest all they want, infact people are still protesting on side walks. But they don't have right to block whole city blocks for weeks, blocking paths of ambulances, jam 911 and block critical infrastructure.
  - beardedetim 5y ago
    Why not? I agree we currently don't but why shouldn't we?
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I think this is reasonable, but it's also problematic when the subject of the protests invokes emergency powers to deal with his critics. That's not a precedent you want to set over people blocking streets, never mind the functionally weak position the government was attempting to defend (vaccine mandates).
    - dataminer 5y ago
      I really wish that people would have protested without going overboard, the support would have grown a lot more. (Not making blanket statement that everyone who was part of protest went overboard) I am not supportive of vaccine mandates and fully support people's right to control what is injected in their bodies. I don't support people getting fired because they are unvaccinated and all the other negative consequences of mandates. We are in terrible and disappointing situation and can only hope that saner heads will prevail.
  - valachio 5y ago
    You sort of have to, if you want to actually make an impact. Look at what they did in Euromaiden, or the recent protests in Kazakhstan (200+ dead). If Ukrainian people resorted to peaceful protests, the pro-Russian government would have easily cracked down and suppressed the protests. If you want another even more brutal example - look at the Tiananmen Protests. Do you think peaceful protest will convince an authoritarian communist government to magically give up its powers? The government rarely listens to its people (yes that includes democratic countries). If you want the government to listen, you gotta make a lot of noise.
radu_floricica 5y ago
tekstar 5y ago
I live in Ottawa. This was not a protest, it was an 21 day occupation, blocking the city core and removing citizen's ability to sleep in their own homes due to the constant excessive noise, (often at ear-damaging levels) or leave without harassment. Businesses in the area could not open. So to compare these occupiers with typical protestors does not make sense. Talking with other locals, the last time someone could remember a non-peaceful protest in Ottawa was around the beginning of the Iraq war, aside from when about a dozen BLM protestors occupied a single intersection overnight and were all arrested on day 2 of their attempt to keep the intersection shut down.
- valachio 5y ago
  [Here's a popular viewpoint from the left about protests](https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080?lang=en https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080?lang=en). If protests were "comfortable", then there would be no pressure for the government to do anything. The point of a protest is to make enough noise (heh) so the government is forced to react. Look at protests like Euromaiden, or the recent protests in Kazakhstan with 200+ dead. If the Ukrainian people didn't protest at the levels they did, and occupy Kiev for as long as they did, would the government have done anything? I don't think anyone in Kiev was sleeping when people were building barricades and engaging in deadly firefights with the Ukrainian police & army.
  - tekstar 5y ago
    I don't hold that exact viewpoint, so I don't feel the need to defend it. There's varying levels of "uncomfortable", and a question of who is being made uncomfortable. If a protest is permanently damaging the hearing of regular people who are not in positions of leadership for 21 days straight, and subjecting them to significant harassment, some of them a botched arson attempt, and a whole litany of other assaults as have been documented in Centertowne Ottawa, I would argue it is more akin to holding them hostage.
    - valachio 5y ago
      Fair enough. I can sympathize if you had to endure 3 weeks of loud noise. Frankly if I wasn't supportive of the Convoy, I would be pretty upset too. One more thing I would say is that the fault for how long the "Occupation" went on for isn't entirely with the Convoy. With a large protest like this, it's up to the government to deal with, one way or another. The authorities didn't take the right actions. They should either come out to negotiate with the protesters, or quickly utilise force to disperse them. Instead, they basically sat still for 3 weeks while Trudeau "fled" Ottawa to some undisclosed location. So I would lay some blame on the government in its tardiness in addressing the Convoy, as part of the reason it went on for so long. You can't expect angry people who are determined to change government policy to just pack up and go home when the government told them to
Banana699 5y ago
This comment is weird, it appears to be a rehashing of the populist argument "If you go against the majority then you deserve whatever happens to you", as an atheist living in a majority-muslim intolerant country, that's familiar. And the kinds of people who say this are familiar too. They perceive themselves to be part of the majority (Or the "Right Side Of History", in other imaginations), they think it will never turn against them or - for that matter - that the people they're oppressing will never return the unpleasant favor and gang on them back. All those countless centuries of history and people still haven't fully grasped that Power and Oppression are completely symmetric tools, totally blind to the identities of those wielding them or those they're used against. The tyranny you so gleefully cheer now is going to turn against you (or an equivalent one will be constructed by the ones you oppressed one day and used against you) and you won't be laughing then.
tomp 5y ago
This is a common recipe. Suppress people's rights & freedoms for long enough until they revolt, then call them violent terrorists and suppress them a bit more.

tistoon 5y ago

I tend to disagree. In democracy, the people is the state and, in extent, has the power. The government (elected people in place) is only temporary.

beardedetim 5y ago
I agree with you on paper but have a really hard time viewing my current relationship with any State as that of which I have power. Nor do I see myself with any _limited State_ having any power. Nor do I see myself as having _any_ ability to legally inflict harm to others as the State has power to do. I totally agree that democracy on paper says the People have control but I am not seeing that play out at any real scale.
throwaway894345 5y ago
In a lot of countries, "the people are the state" is only nominally true. Special interests often carry the day, and anyway in a partisan environment devoid of principles we need to protect against moments of passion where a 51% majority can infringe on the rights of 49% (or in my country, a largely elite 10%--which helms universities and media institutions and so on--can use the state to push their ideology on the other 90%).

sleepingadmin 5y ago

>This is the risk in protesting. Authorities have never been nice to protestors. Protesting has always carried the risk of assault and the loss of livelihood, wealth, freedom, or life. So before protesting, you need to ask yourself if what your protesting for is worth it. This act has never been used before, it's predecessor was used only during serious war. This act being used against legitimate protest and then going forward banning all protest? Like say you want to protest the government based on one side of the Ukraine war? You can't, that's illegal. Say you want to go cover those illegal protests and report on it as a journalist? That's illegal. >Especially after the perceived police incompetence in the matter (by failing to dole out the standard ass-kicking-jail-fine punishment). The police couldn't touch the protest for weeks not because of inaction but because your right to protest is a human right. They required the national emergency to remove our right to protest in order to label the protest illegal.

pylon 5y ago
>The police couldn't touch the protest for weeks not because of inaction but because your right to protest is a human right. They required the national emergency to remove our right to protest in order to label the protest illegal. So you are saying under Canadian law, if you protest and do something illegal like blocking roads, destroying property, etc then Canadian police can't do anything? So if I go back in history and look at other protests in Canada like the ones against the pipelines for example, then I will see that the police didn't act against them?
- Banana699 5y ago
  >you protest and do something illegal like blocking roads Any protest of any respectable size will block the roads it chooses to march in, every climate change protest and every gay pride blocks the roads, never see people complaining about those. >destroying property What is the property that was destroyed by the protest in question?
  - tekstar 5y ago
    > Any protest of any respectable size will block the roads it chooses to march in, every climate change protest and every gay pride blocks the roads, never see people complaining about those. Ottawa gets protests for left- and right- wing causes on a weekly basis. One of the biggest protests we see is a yearly "bus all the catholic school children to parliament hill to protest abortion", and it goes by without a hitch every year. Anyways, protests last for maybe an afternoon or day or two at most and involve people standing on parliament hill or marching around the downtown core, not blockading the city core and constantly harassing the people who live there for multiple weeks.

desireco42 5y ago

True but people should be able to protest and make politicians uncomfortable, which is what happened here. If we can't hear the other side, we go down quickly.

dataminer 5y ago
Absolutely people have right to protest all they want, infact people are still protesting on side walks. But they don't have right to block whole city blocks for weeks, blocking paths of ambulances, jam 911 and block critical infrastructure.
- beardedetim 5y ago
  Why not? I agree we currently don't but why shouldn't we?
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I think this is reasonable, but it's also problematic when the subject of the protests invokes emergency powers to deal with his critics. That's not a precedent you want to set over people blocking streets, never mind the functionally weak position the government was attempting to defend (vaccine mandates).
  - dataminer 5y ago
    I really wish that people would have protested without going overboard, the support would have grown a lot more. (Not making blanket statement that everyone who was part of protest went overboard) I am not supportive of vaccine mandates and fully support people's right to control what is injected in their bodies. I don't support people getting fired because they are unvaccinated and all the other negative consequences of mandates. We are in terrible and disappointing situation and can only hope that saner heads will prevail.
- valachio 5y ago
  You sort of have to, if you want to actually make an impact. Look at what they did in Euromaiden, or the recent protests in Kazakhstan (200+ dead). If Ukrainian people resorted to peaceful protests, the pro-Russian government would have easily cracked down and suppressed the protests. If you want another even more brutal example - look at the Tiananmen Protests. Do you think peaceful protest will convince an authoritarian communist government to magically give up its powers? The government rarely listens to its people (yes that includes democratic countries). If you want the government to listen, you gotta make a lot of noise.

radu_floricica 5y ago

tekstar 5y ago

I live in Ottawa. This was not a protest, it was an 21 day occupation, blocking the city core and removing citizen's ability to sleep in their own homes due to the constant excessive noise, (often at ear-damaging levels) or leave without harassment. Businesses in the area could not open. So to compare these occupiers with typical protestors does not make sense. Talking with other locals, the last time someone could remember a non-peaceful protest in Ottawa was around the beginning of the Iraq war, aside from when about a dozen BLM protestors occupied a single intersection overnight and were all arrested on day 2 of their attempt to keep the intersection shut down.

valachio 5y ago
[Here's a popular viewpoint from the left about protests](https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080?lang=en https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080?lang=en). If protests were "comfortable", then there would be no pressure for the government to do anything. The point of a protest is to make enough noise (heh) so the government is forced to react. Look at protests like Euromaiden, or the recent protests in Kazakhstan with 200+ dead. If the Ukrainian people didn't protest at the levels they did, and occupy Kiev for as long as they did, would the government have done anything? I don't think anyone in Kiev was sleeping when people were building barricades and engaging in deadly firefights with the Ukrainian police & army.
- tekstar 5y ago
  I don't hold that exact viewpoint, so I don't feel the need to defend it. There's varying levels of "uncomfortable", and a question of who is being made uncomfortable. If a protest is permanently damaging the hearing of regular people who are not in positions of leadership for 21 days straight, and subjecting them to significant harassment, some of them a botched arson attempt, and a whole litany of other assaults as have been documented in Centertowne Ottawa, I would argue it is more akin to holding them hostage.
  - valachio 5y ago
    Fair enough. I can sympathize if you had to endure 3 weeks of loud noise. Frankly if I wasn't supportive of the Convoy, I would be pretty upset too. One more thing I would say is that the fault for how long the "Occupation" went on for isn't entirely with the Convoy. With a large protest like this, it's up to the government to deal with, one way or another. The authorities didn't take the right actions. They should either come out to negotiate with the protesters, or quickly utilise force to disperse them. Instead, they basically sat still for 3 weeks while Trudeau "fled" Ottawa to some undisclosed location. So I would lay some blame on the government in its tardiness in addressing the Convoy, as part of the reason it went on for so long. You can't expect angry people who are determined to change government policy to just pack up and go home when the government told them to

Banana699 5y ago

This comment is weird, it appears to be a rehashing of the populist argument "If you go against the majority then you deserve whatever happens to you", as an atheist living in a majority-muslim intolerant country, that's familiar. And the kinds of people who say this are familiar too. They perceive themselves to be part of the majority (Or the "Right Side Of History", in other imaginations), they think it will never turn against them or - for that matter - that the people they're oppressing will never return the unpleasant favor and gang on them back. All those countless centuries of history and people still haven't fully grasped that Power and Oppression are completely symmetric tools, totally blind to the identities of those wielding them or those they're used against. The tyranny you so gleefully cheer now is going to turn against you (or an equivalent one will be constructed by the ones you oppressed one day and used against you) and you won't be laughing then.

tomp 5y ago

This is a common recipe. Suppress people's rights & freedoms for long enough until they revolt, then call them violent terrorists and suppress them a bit more.