4 ms·
I think there is a subtlety here. I believe that forms of protest that inconvenience the public should both happen, and be illegal. What that means is that a
by throwaway22032 4y ago
I think there is a subtlety here.
I believe that forms of protest that inconvenience the public should both happen, and be illegal.
What that means is that a significant mass of people is then required.
If you have ten or twenty people walking slowly down a road and as a result tens of thousands of people are inconvenienced then obviously the police should step in. If they don't, then members of the public will do instead, as we've seen.
If an issue is actually important enough then you'll be able to recruit enough people that they won't be removable without resorting to extreme force anyway. In that case the protest is far more likely to be for a legitimate cause.
- voakbasda 4y agoThis seems like a way of saying that minority groups do not deserve the same protection as large groups. The issues of small groups are not “important enough”. Or did I misunderstand?
- throwaway22032 4y agoI don't think that you misunderstood me, but I do think that we should be careful with using the term "minority group". Examples of minority groups in the UK to me would be things like transgender people (~0.1-1% of the population), people of Indian heritage (1-5%), etc. Small percentages of the whole, but still significant quantities (e.g. tens, hundreds of thousands). I don't think that we can look at a group of 10-20 people with the same opinion blocking traffic in the same way. The rights of the people being disrupted have to be weighed up here.
- thinking4real 4y agoYour premise is fatally flawed. People don’t organize organically in large groups. The media tends to lead them. All this rule you have would do is make sure grassroots protesting isn’t permitted but when the elite run a media train on citizens minds then that will be ok.