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Comment by rsj_hn | Hacker News Reader

> So in order to stop protesters,

No, in order to stop protesters from blocking traffic, then that is all the police need to do. The protestors can always protest in a park or literally anywhere other than in the middle of roads.

In a just society, some group's right to protest does not take priority over everyone else's right to travel and use roads. Roads do not belong to activists, and no activist group has a right to shut down public roads without arranging this with police ahead of time so that appropriate detours can be made for normal traffic.

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A society in which civil rights protesters unlawfully marched over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, interrupting traffic, and withstood the violent attempts at suppression by Alabama state troopers, forcing the nation to confront its fundamental injustice and pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, is _in every single way_ a more just society in which the 'right' of travelers to pass over that bridge on March 7, 1965 is kept sacrosanct.

It is precisely this type of self-righteous posturing that causes people to pass laws to block radical groups from blocking traffic and as well as driving the public into opposing whatever legislation you are advocating.

Sorry, but no civil rights gains were made as a result of people harassing pedestrians and motorists. They were made despite these selfish tactics, not because of them. These types of tactics significantly set back the civil rights movement in the U.S. just as the watts riots set back African American rights.

Always be suspicious when an angry mob tries to justify antisocial behavior with claims of "the greater good". It is never about the "greater good", but is always about theft, domination, and harassment, and it always ends up hurting your cause.

Last week an English high court judge said

> protests “causing some degree of inconvenience are to be expected and, up to a point, tolerated” in a democratic society that recognised the right to freedom of assembly.

(but in this particular case, the protesters went too far by breaching earlier court orders.)

Whether it ends up hurting their cause in this case remains to be seen. They were trying to be jailed before the COP conference began, but despite continued illegal protest nothing much happened until afterwards.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/17/nine-insulat...

I'm glad you agree that while protesters are allowed to cause some inconvenience, they are not allowed to disable critical infrastructure like access to roads.

This is why most areas in the U.S. which are concerned about rule of law (some areas have "progressive prosecutors" that put activism above the rule of law) do not allow protestors to do this, and they make sure that the legal code discourages things like blocking highways or shutting down traffic.

That was not the case in the situation in Britain. Some disruption to critical infrastructure was tolerated, but not repeated disruption, and especially not after an earlier court case had ordered the protests to stop blocking roads.

> I'm glad you agree

Please don't assume my opinion. I tried to keep my comment neutral.

> It is never about the "greater good", but is always about theft, domination, and harassment, and it always ends up hurting your cause.

You can't imagine ever being in a position of non-privilege and needing to protest in order to be treated fairly, can you?

Thank you, that is exactly the event I was recollecting the vague details of when I brought up the hypothetical. It’s sad that commenters are on the side of pre-civil rights segregationists. Blocking the road was against the law just like the diner sit ins. Guess these people would not tolerate diner sit ins either.

What a nice strawman you've constructed here

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