3558

Nobody said it was. We still did a lot of damage to our economy by shutting down for 3 months and now we’re likely to compound that with the effects of the latter problem.

3559

I would like to see more, like

  • more focused screening police applicants
  • zero tolerance for police participation in white supremacist activities or groups
  • support instead of punishing internal whistleblowers
3560

You’re probably right, but let’s make sure we put the blame on the right shoulders. Instead of blaming the folks protesting, maybe we should blame murderous cops and the systems/people that enable them.

3561

I was listening to Joe Madison yesterday on Julie Mason’s show on Sirius:
https://joemadison.com/bio/

He spoke at length about this very thing. He said that the difference between a moment and a movement was sacrifice. He argued that the people protesting were sacrificing their health by choosing to protest amid the pandemic.

I’m not entirely convinced by his assertion (that young people are thinking to themselves that this is more important than the possibility of getting sick and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make), but I thought it was an interesting talking point.

3562

I don’t know why it is necessary to “blame”. The situation is what it is. And it is a bad situation. There is lots of blame to go around but that doesn’t get us anywhere.

3563

Young people, who make up the primary demographic of the protesters, are also more likely to think the virus won’t be life threatening to them. Not saying that’s a good thing as of course they can spread it to others but it likely is a factor here. Rightly or wrongly the protesters are likely more worried about getting a beat down by the police they are protesting than they are of the coronavirus.

Also it’s not fair to say that instantly news of the virus is gone. It’s not the one and only headline story as it was for a while, but it’s still front page most places.

Finally the comparison was made between these protests and the lockdown protests. This is egregious false equivalence. The anti-lockdown protests were people literally, in all the most literal senses of literally as in they had signs with the words saying so, were protesting because they could not get a haircut. They wanted states to take measures that would basically force working class people back to their jobs to serve their vanity needs. They were protesting to use state power to encourage others to risk their lives for their comfort needs. Many people in those protest also decided to “vanity signal” and reject basic precautions like wearing masks.

It should not be hard to understand why people might look more kindly on a set of people protesting over actual murder to those who want the little people to get back to work serving their petty desires.

3564

People were making this argument for the libertarian Trumpite nutjobs and were roundly lambasted, on the grounds that “if you protest you aren’t just risking your life, but the lives of everyone you come into contact with and the health workers who treat you”.

Why has this changed?

I think the argument that the protests in the US are nevertheless justified is really strong, but you do need to make the argument rather than say the exact same thing you would attack if a libertarian said it.

And how do you justify this? Why does the murder by police of black men in the US justify protests that are going to cause French deaths?

We have outlawed protest. You had no problem with this when people you didn’t like were protesting.

3565

Wait, the anti-lockdown protests were outlawed? They were confronted by police and dragged away? I seem to have missed that.

3566

Differential enforcement of the law in Trump’s America? Say it ain’t so!

I think it was generally made pretty clear that what those protestors were doing was a breach of the various stay home and anti-public gathering orders. But (some might even say sensibly) the police kept their distance from the crazy until it went home.

3567

The subtext being: “So it had better be worth it”, and those protests were about things that weren’t.

Maybe that should have been more explicit, but I think most folks got that part intuitively.

3568

I don’t think people should be gathering in large protests now, but dear god I can understand why they are.

3569

Because one was about “I want to go to Applebee’s” and one is about “stop choking people to death”.

3570

So are you saying people should be able to protest because they want to go to Applebee’s (although obviously that would be a dumb and contemptible thing to do), or are you saying protest should be outlawed due to the health emergency and that BLM protestors in the US would be doing a morally right thing by breaking the law to protest?

(I come down pretty cleanly on the latter side of this).

3571

Have we considered the number of people who may be out solely for the purpose of trying to get tear gassed as a means of checking their eyesight? Some may have even driven there so they could check both eyes.

3572

Remember, in effect it wasn’t just “I want to go to Applebee’s”, it was that they wanted the employees of Applebee’s to have to come in and serve them. These people were not just demanding to allow themselves to be in a position to get and spread the virus, but that others must as well. Reopening is not just about allowing business to open, but about removing the support that enables people to stay at home.

3573

The other context to COVID-19 and the protests is that the country had already thrown caution to the wind. Look back a week ago to Memorial Day and the crowds. This virus was set to explode regardless.

This is going to make it much worse, of course. I’m really worried about how bad it could get but I also sympathize with the protestors. I don’t sympathize with the Don’t Tread On Me chucklefucks who just wanted to jerk off each other’s AR-15s.

3574

Haha! I got you guys! You are more lenient in your opinions of people who break the laws for just cases than you are of people who break laws for idiotic and unjust causes!

3575

Busted. :(

To admit to even greater hypocrisy, I was completely opposed to invasion of Iraq despite being fully supportive of US military action in WW2. I’m going to go stand in a corner and hang my head now.

3576

Wait, people don’t think Javert is the good guy? Oh man, what have we become…

3577

As a sort of connoisseur of the stuff, I just wanted to say that’s some fine sarcasm there.