Riot Police on Mcgill campus

[Commodore]

What they are not understanding aout is when protesters attempt to FORCE people to listen, something you have no right to compel in the first place. Thats what people do with theri sit ins or traffic stoppages or building occupations, they are physically forcing people to do something they may otherwise chose not to do, and they phisicality of it alone constitutes violence.

The whole point of a protest is to force people to listen to you. Without that you might as well not protest at all. This is because the whole reason a group of people protest is because that group has tried to give people a chance to voluntarily listen and they feel they were ignored. Therefore, they will become louder and more visible until their concerns are addressed.

Also, the literal definition of violence really doesn't apply here. As we have seen with language many times over, literal definitions really don't mean anything to anyone; it's all about a word's perceived meaning. Given that, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone, including your vaunted police, that would agree with you that sit-ins are a form of violent protest.

 

[Traitorfish]

So why is it that the OWS types don't like being able to stand in a square and say their peice without obstructing anyone vice their MO of compelling attention via force? Its because they fear being ignored, which is a failure of message on their part. The answer to that is not to compell attention. The answers are either to get a better message or be better at communicating it or indeed do compel attention and accept the consequences instead of quibbling your way out of them.

Debatable, given that we do not live in a society of all-seeing sages dividing their attention with perfect reason. There are more than a few structural factors which play a hand in determining who does and does not catch the public ear, which provides the obvious defence on the part of the occupiers that they were merely tipping the balance of influence towards a more egalitarian level; the debate then would become whether the extent of their actions matches the extent of the imbalance.

 

[sysyphus]

Since when is the presence of riot police in Montreal news?

 

[Patroklos]

So were the civil rights protests wrong too? Perhaps we should just say that Martin Luther King Jr was a villain of history. Ditto for Tiananmen Square.

Who said violence was was always wrong or unjustified? Certainly not me. Recognizing something is violent is not a moral judgement about that violence.

I guess you want the US to set up "free speech zones" where you can protest without fear of anyone actually listening. Seems to be what you're going for.

This is a straw man, nothing I have said can in any way be construed as such.

Why is it only wrong when the Chinese do it, but if the US tries to do it, it's perfectly OK? Here's a hint: if you need a double-standard for your government's behavior to be OK, it's not OK.

This has no relevance to anything I have said, please clarify.

It's only wrong if you support authoritarianism.

Requiring protests to be peaceful and lawful is constant for every nation in existance.

 

[Patroklos]

The whole point of the "use of force continuum" (also used by police forces and investigative bodies charged with overseeing them) is precisely to avoid the one size fits all use of the term "violence."

Exactly, gne protestors want a one size fits all approach so they can claim anything short of Molotov cocktails does not warrant a police response.

In other words, implying that anything on the continuum is "violence" and somehow the same thing is missing the point of the continuum. Even if we agree protesters are at stage 1 or 2, and maybe even 3 of the continuum, you are inherently agreeing that the "force" utilized is at the low end of the spectrum.

I am not inherently agreeing , I flat out said it was at the low end or mild.

Ignoring the spectrum and what it means, however, is missing the point entirely, probably intentionally. Being on the spectrum in and of itself does not really tell anyone much.

It tells you something is not entirely peaceful.

 

[choxorn]

Who said violence was was always wrong or unjustified? Certainly not me. Recognizing something is violent is not a moral judgement about that violence.

The justification is irrelevant. The question is whether Civil Rights Protestors can seriously be considered violent protest, for standing/sitting around in an area.

 

[woody60707]

I giggle so much reading this. The OWS movement next step needs to be to protest and occupy the 1% riches builds.