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If the large crowd is told to disperse by government agents, you are no longer a peaceful protester. You are free to protest, but you are not free to protest a

If the large crowd is told to disperse by government agents, you are no longer a peaceful protester. You are free to protest, but you are not free to protest at any location at any time. If once told to move, you do not, you can, and were always able to be removed by use of physical force. The reason these peaceful crowds are told to disperse, is they are often not peaceful, they leave much damage to regular citizen's and business property behind, and it's not your call whether the crowd poses a danger to my car parked on the street, or my place of work. It's up to the law enforcement assessing risk of the crowd causing damage, and if they think it will, even if they have not, they have to disperse. Like when the crowd starts ignoring the fact that cars drive on the streets trying to get home from work, and starts walking through and blocking traffic. Or even leaving a pile of trash and destroying the lawn of public or private property, which I have to pay to restore with taxes. Does your peaceful protest stay on the sidewalk? Does it carry its trash to the nearest garbage can instead of dropping it on the street? Does it destroy zero property and wait for the walk sign at intersections? Because if not, the issue is not with the protest. It's with the things you are doing which are not peaceful, to people not part of your peaceful protest. I was moving apartments during one of these "peaceful" protests in Chicago. At that point, they weren't burning buildings and destroying stores yet. It took me 12 hours to move 2 minivan-loads of stuff. My brother was helping me. When the police tried to get people to clear the roads, the people did not. Instead, they threw a bunch of flamable shit in the parking lot where regular people's cars were, and destroyed those cars. Because the cops tried to clear the road so people, on the last of the month, could move their shit into the new apartment. after working a full day. and having to work the next day. after having 2 hours of sleep. by the way, when my brother got home, his girlfriend's shitty old car was broken into and needed to be repaired. good thing she was unemployed and couldn't pay for it, otherwise it might have cost $200 instead of the free ducktape + plastic bag combo. peaceful for you does not mean peaceful for everyone. and the cops, and the feds, are there to make it peaceful for everyone - not just you. when told to disperse, so people like me can simply live our already stressful lives, you refuse to, you are no longer peaceful, and should be thrown into a van and removed. and if that takes tear gas, I'm cool with that, just like you're cool with completely fucking up my life. let me ask you this: forget protests. regular workday, mid-afternoon. a group of people decide to just start walking in the middle of the road dropping garbage everywhere and won't leave. what do you think should happen to them? nothing? does the group being large make it ok?

maxlybbert 6y ago
I’m bemused to see reports about the police overreacting to peaceful protests, followed by a sentence or two acknowledging that fires were set at those same protests.
- dungdongdang 6y ago
  They were "peaceful" - as in garbage everywhere, and blocking literally every road downtown in the middle of the day as people got off of work. When the cops tried to clear the roads, using megaphones only, the protesters responded by chanting fuck the police. When the police formed a line and walked down the roadway to clear it, hours later, people started throwing shit. Late evening, they lit the parking lot on fire, with regular people's cars. To retaliate to the police trying to clear the road for those cars trying to get out of work and drive home - at like 9pm. In my opinion, there has been literally no police overreaction to protests so far. Even the old white guy who got pushed. Yes, when you're told to leave, and instead you don't, you get pushed. Maybe if you're old and fragile, and it's dangerous for you to get pushed, you should have left. This was nothing though. The next days downtown was destroyed. You had dudes running out of a destroyed starbucks with boxes of coffee, chanting nwa. Yes, 99% of the looters in Chicago were black. Just like all the people who killed someone here (about 400 murders per year). The white people defending the rights of black lives were all peaceful, except for making people's lives difficult with garbage and roadblocks. The next day the girl in the apartment next to mine started dumping out trash out her window on the people looting the stores on the ground floor. She had to move. Her apartment was covered in bullet holes. No, I'm not a trump voter. not a biden voter. not a bernietard. Just a guy trying to live a difficult life and get through the day, like most people are. Black lives do not matter. No lives matter, or should matter to others. But interfering negatively with people's lives matters, to those people. So I cheer every time the protesters get gassed, or shot in the eye with a rubber bullet. Just like I cheer every time a cop gets shot.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  A lot of the problem here is that there are two groups at the protests: police brutality protestors, and assholes who just want to watch the world burn.

maxlybbert 6y ago

I’m bemused to see reports about the police overreacting to peaceful protests, followed by a sentence or two acknowledging that fires were set at those same protests.

dungdongdang 6y ago
They were "peaceful" - as in garbage everywhere, and blocking literally every road downtown in the middle of the day as people got off of work. When the cops tried to clear the roads, using megaphones only, the protesters responded by chanting fuck the police. When the police formed a line and walked down the roadway to clear it, hours later, people started throwing shit. Late evening, they lit the parking lot on fire, with regular people's cars. To retaliate to the police trying to clear the road for those cars trying to get out of work and drive home - at like 9pm. In my opinion, there has been literally no police overreaction to protests so far. Even the old white guy who got pushed. Yes, when you're told to leave, and instead you don't, you get pushed. Maybe if you're old and fragile, and it's dangerous for you to get pushed, you should have left. This was nothing though. The next days downtown was destroyed. You had dudes running out of a destroyed starbucks with boxes of coffee, chanting nwa. Yes, 99% of the looters in Chicago were black. Just like all the people who killed someone here (about 400 murders per year). The white people defending the rights of black lives were all peaceful, except for making people's lives difficult with garbage and roadblocks. The next day the girl in the apartment next to mine started dumping out trash out her window on the people looting the stores on the ground floor. She had to move. Her apartment was covered in bullet holes. No, I'm not a trump voter. not a biden voter. not a bernietard. Just a guy trying to live a difficult life and get through the day, like most people are. Black lives do not matter. No lives matter, or should matter to others. But interfering negatively with people's lives matters, to those people. So I cheer every time the protesters get gassed, or shot in the eye with a rubber bullet. Just like I cheer every time a cop gets shot.
jschwartzi 6y ago
A lot of the problem here is that there are two groups at the protests: police brutality protestors, and assholes who just want to watch the world burn.