Did Indians have a (moral) right to disrupt peoples’ lives with their protests against the British? Did Martin Luther King have a (moral) right to disrupt peoples’ lives with his protests? Most people think it’s ok to have disruptive protests in favor of their strongly held beliefs and are opposed to such protests when they are not in favor of their own strongly held beliefs.
One thing that is ironic in the article is the mention of Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps the author did not notice that they were disruptive since this since they aligned with his values. I don’t know but it is striking that he mentions Occupy as an example of non disruptive protests. There were definitely disruptive protests in that movement.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence talks about when a government no longer has the consent of the governed that it is then the right of the people to alter it. Rebellion is the ultimate form of disruptive protesting. There are times when such actions are morally justified.
We've seen this twice recently in the SF Bay Area, major disruption to Bay Bridge and Golden Gate bridge traffic by protests related to the war in Gaza. In the first case, it's reported that delivery of some urgent medical supplies (organ transplant? I can't recall the detail) were harmfully delayed. It's so stupid, in that the chances of these protests changing anything on the other side of the world are about zero.
Proposals are in process to increase the penalties.
"From the blocking of the Bay Bridge during last year's APEC summit to Wednesday morning's shutdown of the Golden Gate Bridge, over the past several months the Bay Area has seen numerous protests that have blocked traffic and interrupted vital freeways.
On Thursday, [a legislator] introduced a bill that would double penalties for protesters purposefully obstructing the flow of traffic in any way that would prevent emergency vehicles from passing."
In the 1980s support for Israel was absolute. This despite Israel sinking a U.S. Navy vessel and being engaged in high level espionage against the U.S. Now that support is not absolute. This change has occurred slowly and at least in part has been accomplished by protests that raise “awareness”.
I make no claims regarding whether or not Israel deserves our support. My goal here is to point out that protests can have lasting impacts on social perception. An individual protest accomplishes very little but thousands of them in support of a cause can and do accomplish things.
In the cases mentioned, you don't have the right. Local law enforcement are just not enforcing the laws. The question you should ask is why, and who benefits from adding chaos.
The protesters sometimes use effective anti-law enforcement behavior. In the recent San Francisco area bridge blockages, they would throw their car keys into the water to make it harder to move their vehicles blocking the lanes, and have their hands locked to one another inside of metal tubes resistant to easily separating them.
The article seems pretty blind to the issue...but I'm thinking that there's a very wide moral range between Canadian First Nations (brutally conquered, occupied, subject to centuries of genocide & ethnic cleansing) on what should be their own land, and the [cough/] antics of the British Just Stop Oil activists.
Speaking of childish petulance, this smacks of entitlement to keep sliding along the greased skids of capitalist culture. "I've got a car and a home where my kids are safe; how dare you get in my way and inconvenience me?"
I upvoted the post because this is an important topic for discussion: what regulations do we opt for, and why?
One thing that is ironic in the article is the mention of Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps the author did not notice that they were disruptive since this since they aligned with his values. I don’t know but it is striking that he mentions Occupy as an example of non disruptive protests. There were definitely disruptive protests in that movement.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence talks about when a government no longer has the consent of the governed that it is then the right of the people to alter it. Rebellion is the ultimate form of disruptive protesting. There are times when such actions are morally justified.