Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I may be mistaken but I thought protesters had a legal 30 seconds to stand in the way and march and chant and then they had to clear the path?
You're right though, it is going to get out of hand and this is the problem.
Our Government's response is that the protesters are doing something illegal, the authorities are doing nothing about it, so people cant just go about doing their jobs.
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I don't think there's a legal 30 seconds thing, Clearly these protestors are ignorng that anyways.
I posted a column from a activist earlier that you have a right to protest, but you can't break the law, and you're rights to protest are balanced by the rights of the people that you're protesting again.
We have the right to commerce and free transportation and travel, we have the right to transport goods. By standing in the roads or on a train line they are breaking the law. Its Civil Disobedience. The activist pointed out that there was a cost to protesting in the old days that you had to be willing to accept because the governments would enforce the law, arrest you, drag you through the courts and sentence you. You as a protestor had to be willing to absorb those costs.
Now there's no price to breaking the law. The Governments strategy of gently handling protestors arresting them and letting them, go immediately has fallen completely flat and has done nothing to defuse the situation, in fact its made it worse.
I was watching a video yesterday where a police officer approached a blockade and read a letter praising their actions and enforcing that the Police were there in the name of friendship and Peace, and he hoped that they would maybe see a way to move their blockade. It was so silly and obnoxious and its not going to get the protestors to move, stuff like this is going to double down on their resolve.
In the old days a cop would enforce the law, he'd walk up, tell them they had 24 hours or they would be removed and remind them of the amount of jail time and fines they would be facing.
The strategy that the protestors have tripped on, combined with the actions of the police and governments have done nothing but prove that Canada is a paper lion when it comes to enforcing the laws and that protestors can easily and cheaply grind this country to a halt.