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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

The only thing that's sad is that a bunch of enraged people aren't getting vaccinated during an ongoing pandemic and instead decide to break the law and cause untold sums in economic damage.

Getting these people off the street isn't authoritarianism, it's preventing the inmates from running the asylum.

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Getting protesters at Parliament Hill arrested, fined, bank accounts frozen, and other people who support them (fining those who brings food and gas), isn't authoritarian?

Can't you make a distinction with the bridge blockade and the rest?

I think you can and should make a distinction between protests that are lawful and those that are illegal. If a protest isn't lawful any more, aiding it isn't either.

To me the Canadian government doesn't look authoritarian, it looks weak. For weeks you have people threatening public order as well as public health. To accommodate this implies that a minority can intimidate the majority of the population and legitimate authority through use of force.

Exactly right. We should allow protests, but only the ones that don't make the government look weak. As soon as the protest starts gaining traction, it needs to be declared illegal so that the minority cannot intimidate legitimate authority.

Like the Hong Kong protests? Those are illegal. I don't think your distinction is useful or clarifying. All that being illegal says is that the state has decided its not allowed.

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