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ender502 wrote: There has been some talk about laws and I wanted to add some context....
protesting.... You either support people's right to free speech and assembly or you don't.Period. You either stand up for our constitutional rights or you don't. Period. The question about what is "appropriate" when it comes to protest isn't a question or debate. It is merely people trying to say, in a faux southern genteel way, "don't protest. Just please shut up. Whatever you're complaining about doesn't effect me nor should it." The point of protest is to make your opinion known and to let others know what the situation is and why you are protesting. It is supposed to effect others. Thats sort of the point. The forces of status quo would rather you just protest in your living room. That way no one has to see or hear you and no one has to recognize the situation. That just wont fly.
Civil Disobedience...the point is to break the law. The point is to be punished for breaking an unjust law. To bring attention for the unjust nature of the situation..like getting arrested for drinking at a whites only fountain.
Multiple NFL players got face to face meetings with mayors, governors and police chiefs due to their protests during the national anthem before games and their comments at press conferences and on social media.
You are telling me famous NFL players that bring revenue to states/cities were able to protest effectively live on television? It is almost like they had the audience right in front of them the whole time. Where the people who are blocking off the highways/interstates probably do not have a film crew following them or 100,000+ followers/friends on various forms of social media.
I wonder why some people break the law to get attention for their cause and others do not.
It was the same cause and the NFL players are perfectly capable of advocating for it and discussing it intelligently and in depth. Lawful protests are better than unlawful rioting.
So, we should rely on Celebrities to advocate for the poor?
We are talking about protests, not rioting. Blocking a highway is not a riot.
Blocking a road without a permit is illegal and dangerous and road blocking will lead to justifiable arrests and isn't a prerequisite for an effective protest. Celebrities can advocate for whatever they want, same as poor people. Protests don't have to be violent to be effective. MLK preached was adamant that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference practice nonviolent protests and they were very effective.
Where is the violence in blocking a road?
I don't recall saying that blocking a road was a violent act. Playing chicken with oncoming traffic can result in some pretty violent collisions so I wouldn't recommend doing regardless of your motivation or cause.
Co'tor Shas wrote: End because they refuse to increase the size of the house of reps (something long overdue), it's reached the point of having over 700000 people per representative in some cases.
Too a degree some reps have more constituents than others is entirely unavoidable. However if district lines were drawn for representative purposes rather than electoral ones this wouldn't be a problem.
Increasing the size of the house is a bad idea. Ever try sitting over 400 people in a room when they all have equal rights to speak, amend, and make motions? The House is already at an unwieldy size. That's why we capped it at 435. There are so many hours in a session, and this is a big country. If anything the functionality of the house would improve if we made it smaller, not bigger.
The original design was something like 50-60K per each. The UK Parliament, for example, representing 64M people, is current at 640, significantly more than our 435, who are representing over 300M.
The UK is also a much smaller country economically, and regionally and functions on a Parliamentary model. With how spread out the US population is, the structure of the federal system in the US (where a larger degree of the burden of governing is shifted to the state and local governments out of the national government), I think it is a mistake to treat these as 1 to 1 comparisons.
I always thought we shouldexpand the house to reflect the population growth a bit...
But... you do make a good point. Otherwise, if the Reps where hard locked to "per X peeps"... we may end up with this:
[spoiler]
Well if you will insist on having such a ridiculously large country
Downsizing is a lot more difficult for us than it was for the UK because virtually all of our empire is on the same continent.
[/spoiler]
I thought California had been looking into a bit of independence?
Texas was independent for a while before becoming a state.Since the ACW we just play hot potato with secessation talk. Now it's California's turn, previously it's been Texas or parts of New England or the Midwest. In Alaska and Hawaii there's active groups who call for secession, in Hawaii it's a nativist motivated thing and in Alaska it's an anti govt thing. There's also been talk over the years of breaking up Cali into smaller states too.
*Trying to spoiler long quote tunnels for the benefit of cell phone users but doing it on my iPhone contributes to me mucking it up, apologies
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/01/17 00:23:53
It's completely nonviolent, and lets be honest. No one in their right mind is going to drive head long into a wall of people in the middle of the road. This isn't a "people jumping into traffic" scenario. There are walls of people in the road;
Now blocking a roadway like that probably violates more a few laws, so arrest them but lets not pretend that this is a "game of chicken." The only way someone collides with something here is by criminal levels of negligence or wilful desire to do harm. The former of course is a constant on the road, which makes blocking one a particularly dangerous way of drawing attention, to which I would simply suggest we all contemplate what has people riled up enough to do it in the first place.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 00:28:19
It's completely nonviolent, and lets be honest. No one in their right mind is going to drive head long into a wall of people in the middle of the road. This isn't a "people jumping into traffic" scenario. There are walls of people in the road;
Now blocking a roadway like that probably violates more a few laws, so arrest them but lets not pretend that this is a "game of chicken." The only way someone collides with something here is by criminal levels of negligence or wilful desire to do harm.
MLK had thousands of national guardsman mobilized to clear the road and protect the protestors. If Johnson hadn't mobilized the guard with a presidential order the county sherrifs in Alabama would have shut down that march at the county line like they did the previous attempts at it.
It's a game of chicken because the motorists don't know the crowd will move from the shoulder of the road into the path of traffic until it happens. Braking to a full stop in the middle of the road just because some people might start jaywalking is a good way to get rear ended and cause a pile up.
LordofHats wrote: If you get rear ended, the person behind you was following to closely. No protestor is responsible for their reckless driving.
If you willfully put an obstruction such as yourself in the road creating a hazard that disrupts traffic and causes an accident you are responsible for the accident. It's no different than if you throw something off an overpass onto the highway below and cause an accident it's your fault.
Prestor Jon wrote: If you willfully put an obstruction such as yourself in the road creating a hazard that disrupts traffic and causes an accident you are responsible for the accident.
That's not how responsibility works.
The first thing anyone learns in Drivers Ed is to always leave room to stop in case of obstruction. It's literal day one stuff. If you don't leave room and someone in front of you has to make a sudden stop and you hit them, that is your fault regardless of the reason the person in front of you stopped (edit: barring specific laws about certain insurance fraud schemes anyway).
Now if someone jumps in front of you, and you hit them because there was no time to stop that's not your fault, but I'm not sure what protests your watching because these people;
Are not jumping into a road here. I'm just assuming I don't have to explain the point of playing chicken. I hope these people are being smart in how they first enter roadways, but once their there it's not remotely like playing chicken and if a horde of people enter a road and you don't stop when you had the time I don't think "they shouldn't have entered the road" is going to fly in your negligent homicide case (then again given the attitude presented by some in this thread it very well might).
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/01/17 01:21:36
Prestor Jon wrote:Blocking a road without a permit is illegal and dangerous and road blocking will lead to justifiable arrests and isn't a prerequisite for an effective protest. Celebrities can advocate for whatever they want, same as poor people. Protests don't have to be violent to be effective. MLK preached was adamant that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference practice nonviolent protests and they were very effective.
Blocking a road is not violence, it's just a inconvenience. MLK also had something to say about people who think one should only protest according to some idealised idea of a protest and when it's not causing too many problems with your schedule.
Prestor Jon wrote: If you willfully put an obstruction such as yourself in the road creating a hazard that disrupts traffic and causes an accident you are responsible for the accident.
That's not how responsibility works.
The first thing anyone learns in Drivers Ed is to always leave room to stop in case of obstruction. It's literal day one stuff. If you don't leave room and someone in front of you has to make a sudden stop and you hit them, that is your fault regardless of the reason the person in front of you stopped (edit: barring specific laws about certain insurance fraud schemes anyway).
Now if someone jumps in front of you, and you hit them because there was no time to stop that's not your fault, but I'm not sure what protests your watching because these people;
Are not jumping into a road here. I'm just assuming I don't have to explain the point of playing chicken. I hope these people are being smart in how they first enter roadways, but once their there it's not remotely like playing chicken and if a horde of people enter a road and you don't stop when you had the time I don't think "they shouldn't have entered the road" is going to fly in your negligent homicide case (then again given the attitude presented by some in this thread it very well might).
During the Ferguson riots we had local sympathy protests. They includes a small crowd of maybe a few dozen protestors in dark nonreflective clothing gathering along the side of the Durham Freeway, 55 mph 2 lanes each side with a median, at night and there are no streetlights and then slowly started to edge out onto the freeway during rush hour traffic while I was commuting home. I watched the local news coverage later and there's protester footage up on YouTube (it's in the linked article below) it's tough to see the protesters or read their signs because the only illumination is from the headlights stopped traffic. Thankfully nobody was hurt but it was an extremely dangerous stunt that led to 31 arrests. Not every road blocking protest is a well organized slow developing daytime occurrence with good visibility.
I'm going to copy/paste the relevant section you link, because I think it's a good thing to add and important for people to read;
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er, or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels that he can set the time-table for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shaloow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail to do this they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be dured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human sonscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condeming Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistentyly affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.
I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said, "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. YOU spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodyness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and, on the other hand, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable devil. I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who are working through the channels of nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promisedland of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, "Get rid of your discontent." But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.
But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice? -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist? -- "Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist? -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King might have been talking about the plight of Black Americans in a dark time, but they're not the only ones for whom these words hold truth. I highly suggest reading the entirety of this paper however. King may be most famous for his oratory, but he was an excellent writer.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 02:08:29
Prestor Jon wrote:Blocking a road without a permit is illegal and dangerous and road blocking will lead to justifiable arrests and isn't a prerequisite for an effective protest. Celebrities can advocate for whatever they want, same as poor people. Protests don't have to be violent to be effective. MLK preached was adamant that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference practice nonviolent protests and they were very effective.
Blocking a road is not violence, it's just a inconvenience. MLK also had something to say about people who think one should only protest according to some idealised idea of a protest and when it's not causing too many problems with your schedule.
Again, I never said it was violent I said it was dangerous and unlawful and can cause accidents. If you want to play in traffic go for it but I wouldn't recommend it.
Not every road blocking protest is a well organized slow developing daytime occurrence with good visibility.
I would actually think night is a great time to start a road blocking protest. As a guy who worked nights most of his life, I can tell you even busy rush hour highways can be quite barren at five in the morning. A good time to throw on some orange jackets, some flashlights, and raise the picket signs.
I'm going to copy/paste the relevant section you link, because I think it's a good thing to add and important for people to read;
Spoiler:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er, or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels that he can set the time-table for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shaloow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail to do this they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be dured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human sonscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condeming Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistentyly affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.
I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said, "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. YOU spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodyness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and, on the other hand, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable devil. I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who are working through the channels of nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promisedland of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, "Get rid of your discontent." But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.
But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice? -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist? -- "Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist? -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King might have been talking about the plight of Black Americans in a dark time, but they're not the only ones for whom these words hold truth. I highly suggest reading the entirety of this paper however. King may be most famous for his oratory, but he was an excellent writer.
I agree with you and am still puzzled as to why you were so vehemently argumentative in the Charlotte riots thread when the violence and looting were condemned and the point that nonviolence is indeed "the more excellent way" to protest was made.
So um.. yeah. Being Scottish, that's the first time I've ever read anything from Martin Luther King Jr and, well, especially with the stuff going on right now with John Lewis, I really can't help but sit here and go.
"Dude... Like... Dude... C'mon. You must realise how close to a knife edge we all are right now."
Of course, my second thought is that we really need to have the next X-Men film, set in the 90's have its villains be the Friends of Humanity.
- Of course, Professor X being based on Martin Luther King Jr, with Magneto being based on Malcolm X.
I agree with you and am still puzzled as to why you were so vehemently argumentative in the Charlotte riots thread when the violence and looting were condemned and the point that nonviolence is indeed "the more excellent way" to protest was made.
Speaking from the heart?
I don't like violence. At heart I am a pacifist. I am saddened when an American soldier dies far from home, and shockingly I am saddened when the ISIS insurgent who killed him is killed in turn. Because its fething sad. A waste of life. But that is sadly the world. I do not know what causes someone to join ISIS. I don't understand it. I don't know how someone can travel from being some kid playing with other kids to lining people up and gunning them down in God's name. I don't know how anyone gets that twisted inside... I do know why people in Charlotte would riot. Because my country leaves whole communities in squalor. Trivializes their cries for help. Reduces the neigh infinite complexity of our world and society into petty and self-serving claims about who worked hard, and who has a "good culture." I understand why people in Charlotte riot for the same reason Martin Luther King offered a fervent defense of nonviolent direct action in his letter from Birmingham; because "oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever." Either they will be acknowledged, vindicated as human beings and helped, or they "out of frustration and despair will seek solace and security" in extreme actions.
I tried to talk about why the people in Charlotte were rioting and all some of the posters in that thread seemed to want to do was pat each other on the back in agreement about how wrong it is to destroy roads and bridges. I argued vehemently because people just don't seem to get it. it was a thread wide case of missing the point. And it's going to happen again (riots not the thread... that might happen to) because as a society we are still ignoring the problem. We'd rather pass vindicitive laws to punish the dissenters, or build a stupid oil pipeline that can go a different direction for a few more tax dollars than even talk about solving the problem. And that's not just the Republicans or Conservatives I'm accusing. I might think them worse on this matter, but it's not like shouting down someone for dropping the n-bomb is helping. Go ahead and shout him down, he deserves it, but Jesus it sure is easier to shout someone down than to actually walk into an inner city and come up with a good plan to make it better isn't it? The Democrats haven't offered a compelling policy strategy for tackling urban blight in inner city.neighborhoods recently. I share King's frustration, because I see a lot of talk and little follow through. And part of that comes from my own helplessness because God knows I don't know how to fix any of it...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 03:11:52
LordofHats wrote: If you get rear ended, the person behind you was following to closely. No protestor is responsible for their reckless driving.
If you willfully put an obstruction such as yourself in the road creating a hazard that disrupts traffic and causes an accident you are responsible for the accident. It's no different than if you throw something off an overpass onto the highway below and cause an accident it's your fault.
Maybe. But how different US driving laws are to Finland? In Finland in above scenario don't know what the person standing in road would be charged but either way the one crashing from behind would regardless be charged of unsafe driving. His job is to keep safe distance that he CAN stop even if the one ahead does sudden break. That's what "safe distance" means. You are supposed to have enough distance ahead you for the car ahead to be able to make emergency stop without you driving straight into him.
Although TBF some of those merely pointed sniper rifles at law enforcement officials.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 08:57:34
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Although TBF some of those merely pointed sniper rifles at law enforcement officials.
Oh yeah, they did do that didn't they XD
So people would be okay (or rather sympahetic towards) with demonstrators protesting the government so long as they have guns, point them at law enforcement, and proclaimed their intent to start the Second American Revolution because the government of the United States is an illegal foreign power, and attest to s willingness to "defend themselves" if "attacked" by said illegal foreign power's jack boot thugs?
Hold on. I'll let the Liberal Hive Mind know right away. To think, all anyone had to do was point guns at people this whole time!
/end sarcasm
I actually expected someone might ask about Bundy but I admit that was not the comment on the matter I expected XD
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/17 09:15:44
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Hah. You know how I mentioned the friends of humanity from Xmen a few posts back, in the cartoon, they were defeated when it was revealed their founder, Craydon Creed was the son of the mutant, Victor Creed, aka Sabertooth. The entire movement was based on one mans self loathing.
Those cartoons really were great at talking about important stuff.
