Being inconvenienced by a protest is your responsibility as a citizen of a democratic republic. If you don’t engage with democracy, democracy engages with you.
I won't be held hostage by asocial freaks who piss and moan when they don't get their way. Let's democratic republic these people into the prison they so yearn for, you may join them if you want.
What is the point of peaceful assembly if not to protest something?
If you're counting peaceful assembly as a tool of democracy, you might as well be saying peaceful protest, of which merely blocking traffic is included, since inconveniencing people is not violent.
There are many cases of people dying from blocked emergency vehicles, with these sort of obstructions.
I’m certain if you were in an ambulance, dying if a heart attack, you would look out your window to see the non violent protest, give a thumbs up, easily make peace with leaving you family behind, and breathe your last breath with a smile, knowing you were part of “democracy”.
My point was that it was peaceful/non-violent. Again, obstructing traffic is not violent. If people die because emergency vehicles couldn't pass, that still isn't violent.
Cool scenario, they have trolleys and switches in SF too. Do you feel the same about people driving to work who cause ordinary traffic that happens to cause an ambulance to arrive too late? Breathe your last breath with a smile, knowing you were part of “capitalism.”
> Protests are not democracy. Voting, freedom of speech, and peaceful assembly, sure, in the US at least.
If not "peaceful assembly", how are you defining "protests"?
Stopping a lawful vehicle with a traffic cone isn't protest. Harassment is not protest. Vandalism is not protest. Halting traffic for 60 seconds might be protest; halting traffic for 60 minutes definitely isn't.
Even civil disobedience, where someone deliberately violates the law, is predicated on being _peaceful_. (And IMO also on the willingness, if not the desire, to accept the legal consequences.)
IMO, media outlets have pushed this idea that violence is protest, but that's pretty new (and of course limited to issues where they agree).
The point of the protests is to bring attention to the fact corps are running dangerous automated vehicles into the middle of active fire scenes and stuff. Were you aware of that without the protests? Maybe they work.
