The Right to Protest or The Right to Destroy

a reply to: RiptKeys

Amendment 18 was opposed by many at the time on that very grounds, and as you say was later overturned.

Amendment 26 gave rights. It lowered the voting age. As the Constitution is a descriptor of the operations of a democratically-operated government, specification in the Constitution of who is eligible to vote is completely appropriate.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

You refer to a time I remember as well. There was, as I recall, some media bias against protesters in general, but that bias was contained behind a sense of duty to report accurately. So yes, you make an excellent point.

Perhaps the media is partly to blame for the recent changes in protest activity. The dynamic today is for media to skew reports with opinion in almost all political situations. Indeed, it seems news reporters today take the unverified words of others as prima facia evidence as opposed to laboring to verify reports. Some even leap to faulty conclusions and report t u one conclusions as fact due to this.

The press is tasked in our society to be the watchdog of politics. But it appears we need a watchdog to watch the watchdog.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Hazardous1408

In THE 1700s it was still a viable ACT ...in case you MISSED it the TEA PARTY (2017 WE sort of adapted from SCUBA attacks to overwhelming strategy,YOU helped by JUST being YOURSELVES )has just taken over by STEALTH we didn't BREAK A THING but that succubus's BACK whom WAS allowed to STEAL the DNC.

a reply to: TheRedneck

We have such a diverse variety of ideals; (hooray for us- others can kick rocks) that there will only be a given number of like-minded people protesting against or marching for a given ideal...at a time. To claim a 'majority' is futile where so many varieties exist that no single group's ideal out-weighs other viewpoints...whether they assemble to voice them or not.

Baskin Robbins gives us 33 flavors, but some like a different consistency; smoothies...so many ideals.

One ideal I think we should all adopt is that if say I want everyone to wear golf-pants on Sundays, I say it in the 'spirit' of
"let's do something everyone can enjoy taking part in." I don't actually care if everyone sports golf-pants literally every week...
More likely, I would ask people to invite someone they disagree with to a dinner, not to continue their squabbles, but to share a butter knife when they spread butter on their bread...

We have to learn how to accept people for who they are if we expect them to accept us the way we are...
There's common ground in every situation, we should learn how to find it and make it harder for foes to hate us.

But if you take my bread off my plate, you should accept I'm going to stab your hand with my fork...
I'd expect the same reaction if the table was turned.

Therein lies the difficulty. We have to learn how to apply what we desire of others upon our own head as we apply it upon theirs. No single group should get the upper hand.
When they do we have a group of people protesting.

I'm like a biting dog, I'll compromise until my food dish gets disturbed...then it's their fault for getting bit.

Cool thread.

There is no right to protest. Nowhere in the US Constitution is there an enumerated right to walk the streets with signs chanting slogans

I beg to differ. Most of the Constitution , and especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments , is all about protesting government. To the point of the people taking back the country from a tyrannical government .

With that being said , there is no right anywhere to riot , loot , burn , and go insane in the name of one political Party on the basis of pure conjecture.
Peace

a reply to: loveguy

We have to learn how to accept people for who they are if we expect them to accept us the way we are...

Exactly!

Our world has been turned topsy-turvy by electronic communications. We can now text people on the other side of the globe in real time. We can access opinions across the world at our leisure. In doing so, we come into contact regularly with cultures much different than our own. At the same time, our communication is restricted by the same media that allows it. 90% of communication is non-verbal, and 90% of verbal communication is not in the words, but in inflection, tone, etc. All we get with text are words... the least important aspect of communication.

Most can comprehend cultural tolerance is needed when talking to someone in another country... but the United States is actually 50 different countries. No other country has that issue. So it is common for someone in Alabama to be less accepting of someone in Wisconsin than of someone in Spain or Australia. The thought process sees them as a fellow American (which they are), and cultural acceptance is not seen to be a necessary thing.

Trust me, I drove a truck for 8 years... California has precious little in common with Alabama. My culture is more similar to Canada's.

I believe that's the root of the anger driving the anti-Trump protests, but that is a hurdle I have rarely been able to clear lately. So, maybe it's time to look at the protests themselves. If we do not unite as a nation, our nation will eventually dissolve, to everyone's detriment.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Gothmog

Most of the Constitution , and especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments , is all about protesting government. To the point of the people taking back the country from a tyrannical government .

Please read the rest of my OP. I admit there is a combination of enumerated rights that allow protests, but there is no enumerated right to protest.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Those are my thoughts on protesting in general, and as a member of the public, the true power behind society, I believe they are valid. What does ATS think?

Your talking or alluding about this whole women protest against trump? Seems like a lot to say, just to get to that.

All these protests have been going on for these past years? What have they accomplished? They may as well be fads which come and go depending on peoples whims. By now its like the little boy who cried wolf, its just kind of just chatter. But cumulatively and in time they all lead to something.

Protests are merely preemptive stages of human behavior in conjuncture to there knowledge and ability to perceive the world around them, both the physical natural order, and that which they created like governments, institution, corporations, laws, religions and ideologies.

And despite your opinion even Occupy Wallstreat lead to its goal. You may have been blind to it, but it got there, or else people would not be aware of what effect even mediocre things like wall street and globalization the monetary systems effects them, believe it or not before that many were clueless on such things. Most protests including all that you listed started and were for the greater part knee jerk reactions.

And this women rally against trump and to say there grievances be they real or not, which you so inconveniently tact with words around. That to will lead to something. Hopefully to something that makes a bit more direct sense. After all the human attention span is very short indeed. Generally anything longer then a few minutes is bound to go over peoples heads.

As you can see its merely a matter of structure, and communication, both at the right time, and place. Like speech and grammar if its just blathered at random, here and there, its bound to not be understood, or worse misunderstood. Protests are just the product of those who do not have the capacity to be understood clearly, and yes that goes for all of them, not just the current ones.

We so do like to pride ourselfs on free speech. But listening most times is a chore, and very few people practice that lost art. So, in effect most of our pride in free speech is just self flatulent blathering. But anyways! Such is the way of progress. I suppose.

a reply to: TheRedneck

The thing is this.

Unless every member of a crowd commits a crime, the crowd are not criminals. The individual who committed the crime is, but the vast number are not. So, when a window gets broken and the police move in and beat the ever living hell out of everyone, they are acting against a largely peaceful mass, in order to get to one or two trouble makers. Further to that, the people of any nation on the Earth should have the right to protest, explicitly stated in their law. If it is not, then their law needs amending. The people should also have the right to oust their leaders, and there should be a stipulation that if they state such as their intention, the police and army should have no part in attempting to stop them. If millions upon millions were to march on the capital of a major country, seeking the disruption, deconstruction and disbanding of their current government, and the military prevented it from happening, then could the residents of that country consider themselves to have freedom and liberty, the right to determine their fate for themselves? Could you honestly state that you were living in a country lead by and for its people, if the people did not have the power to remove unfavourable leadership at the drop of a hat?

I know that in the UK we have no such right, and as such are not a free people, living under a system which promotes the power of the people in all things and at all times.

The "freedom" you have is not freedom if it is limited. It is a shackle wrapped in velvet at best.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

Your talking or alluding about this whole women protest against trump? Seems like a lot to say, just to get to that.

I will admit that the Women Against Trump protests were one trigger for me to write this, but only one. The riots in general we have recently seen across the US were another.

While I agree that public perception is the immediate goal in protests, it is not the end goal. At one time before the Civil Rights marches, black folk were forced to sit in specialky-designated areas in the back of busses, were forced to attend substandard schools, were prevented from living in certain areas, and were denied some forms of employment... all because of the color of their skin. Today, that is not the case. The marches changed public perception, which then changed society to fix the problem.

Likewise, before the Womens Suffrage movement, women could not vote. Those protests changed public perception and public perception changed the Constitution itself to allow women to vote.

Occupy Wall Street may well have changed public perception, but did it change society? No. If anything, the issues addressed by those protests have worsened. My first two examples demanded actions that were not destructive to others: the right to live freely, the right to vote. Occupy Wall Street demanded income equality (I think? Really never was sure) and that would require a complete re-organization of the global economy. Such is not just difficult in the extreme to accomplish, but would be inherently unfair to others because it would require confiscation of property from one group to be given free to another.

So too are the election protests. Their demand is that the protesters be allowed to determine election results unilaterally, despite others having a different view. That is unreasonable, because doing so would effectively remove the right to vote from anyone not affiliated with them.

If the end goal in these protests is to educate only, they will never make a real difference in the lives of people. To my eyes, the education showed why they were wrong, not why they were right.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TrueBrit

You are correct that one criminal in a crowd does not indict the crowd itself, but the goal of a protest is not to simply avoid being a criminal, is it? That would make no sense, for that goal could be more certainly and easily accomplished by staying at home.

No, the goal is to effect desired social change. The vehicle used to effect that change is public perception. One criminal in a crowd of peaceful protesters will turn public perception negative, since that one criminal will garner police attention and thus media attention.

Were I engaged in a protest against, say, anti-smoking regulations, and I saw another protester setting fires, that does not make me an arsonist. But it does damage my public perception, and I would work to stop that other protester from doing so. Allowing their actions is self-defeating; no one will hear my message over their louder message of destruction. It is thus the responsibility of protesters to police themselves.

As to ousting of leaders...

All governing bodies exist via laws, and it is in any such body's best interests to have laws which protect it. It is not reasonable to expect any governing body to allow for its own demise. I'm not even sure I would want to be led by a government which is, in effect, suicidal. If there is any good and proper function of a government, it is to provide stability. Suicide is not stability.

But I do agree that it is the right of the people to choose their leaders and that right must include the right to overthrow those leaders if necessary. I just do not agree that such can be a legal right. We are back again to the difference between protest and revolution. A protest is a legal attempt to execute specific changes to an existing government; a revolution is a complete change in government. The former can be accomplished within an existing framework; the latter by definition destroys existing frameworks of society in order to replace them.

Revolutions can begin with protests, but they are not protests, as surely as hurricanes can spawn tornadoes, but are not tornadoes themselves.

Both are a messy business. Both require extreme sacrifice by those involved. Both are essentially intended to be last resorts, revolution even more so than protests. Last resorts cannot be legally authorized, because to do so implies that revolution cannot happen unless the present government permits it... an oxymoron.

That is the beauty, IMO, of our Bill of Rights. They do not grant the right to revolution, or even explicitly the right to protest. But they do protect those rights, by ensuring the right to peaceful assembly, the right to free speech, and in the case of revolution, the right to keep and bear arms. By enumerating these basic rights, they protect those which cannot logically be enumerated: the right to protest and, if needed, the right to overthrow.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

I agree that it should be peaceful assembly. I don't agree with protestors who light cars on fire. They might have the right message, but all too often they deliver it wrong.

That said, I have no problem with protestors making themselves an inconvenience. That can involve noise and it can involve blockades. As long as emergency vehicles are let through it doesn't bother me if protestors block roads. I consider that to be peaceful resistance.

a reply to: Aazadan

I can go along with being an inconvenience, but not with blocking roads. Even if they let emergency vehicles through, does that include a mother rushing to school to pick up an ill child? No. Does that include the guy trying to get to work on time? No. Does that include someone trying to catch a flight home over an emergency? No.

That really goes to the heart of why protests lately seem to be so impotent and self-defeating. When we lose our respect for others, we lose their respect for us. Without respect, there can be no compassion, and without compassion, no purpose for the protest. All one accomplishes is a deeper divide.

TheRedneck

It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease...
I think protests should be streamed live through the media...to identify criminal behavior/culprits.

There should be a speaker to represent the protesters who answers/asks the questions the media has a duty to broadcast...conduct a live negotiation with the office sharing in the dispute. Resolving disputes should be the battle-cry coming from both sides.

Part of protesting is a reaction that a certain group of people have complaints/grievances, needs that aren't being met.
An open dialogue is necessary to resolve this type of disputes. Just lining the streets with police is ass backward, imo.

Union workers strike and hold signs when negotiations fail, and until negotiations resume and resolve the issue. There are
angry people who aren't being listened to, understood, or feel simply validated as a social working group.

We should use the media to our advantage, not our detriment.
And if we're going to keep inviting the tired the weak and the weary we should learn how to take better care of them than the last gov. that failed them.