In fairness, I've got too many emergency workers in my family not to draw the line at fully blocking thoroughfares. Can you look an EMT in the eye who has had a patient die while their ambulence couldn't get through protestors to the hospital and insist you're in the right? Happens more than you'd want to know. Can't find statistics, but googling it shows just page upon page of different incidents, and unfortunately most of the time shit like that happens it isn't published since it's all HIPAA-complicated to discuss that stuff.

You want to inconvenience someone walking into a Macdonalds? Go ahead. But keep the artery roads clear. It's not about convenience, it's about shutting down life-saving infrastructure. Those assholes that cemented themselves to 93N in Boston 5 years back didn't earn any sympathy from anyone, even their own cause.

To simplify, the only way to get me not to stand beside you in defending your human rights is if you're recklessly taking away someone else's.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point. I was thinking more about people just driving in their cars, but I now see that I was a bit ignorant about emergency vehicles.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

That's why I replied. You seemed like you'd be receptive to that side of things.

Protest is complicated. The less you inconvenience people, the less effective it is. The more you inconvenience people, the more harm you can do and the more fence-sitters might find a good reason to challenge you. We shouldn't NEED protests, but we do.

I think most of the time BLM is a great modern example of doing it right. It shows how much to take the "protesting is wrong" attitude with a grain of salt because so many good peaceful BLM rallies get painted as riots anyway. Yet through all the horseshit, progress.

Just progress with as few deaths as possible, if we can :)