Climate Protesters Shot Dead in Panama

[ThatRobGuy]

As opposed to two murders by the the gun toting American?

I don't think there's any questions as to that aspect... He was a hot head packing heat and we already know the risks associated with that.

My question was what is there to gain by protesting in a manner that inconveniences random people who have nothing to do with the problem, and in a manner that has nothing do with the problem.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb for disobedience-based protests should be for one to ask themselves the question "if I didn't have any signs or slogans, would people be able to know or infer what it is I'm protesting and who I'm protesting against?"

If the answer is "no", then it seems like it's just disobedience for disobedience's sake...

For instance, the just stop oil protesters... If their shirts didn't say it, and they didn't yell it, would anyone know what the heck they were even upset about if the only clues were "they throw soup in museums, and glue their hands to snooker tables"?

For instance, if they blocked a path to an oil refinery or glued their hands to a gas pump so people couldn't use it, I'd at least be able to infer their protest was something oil related.

 

[Larniavc]

I don't think there's any questions as to that aspect... He was a hot head packing heat and we already know the risks associated with that.

My question was what is there to gain by protesting in a manner that inconveniences random people who have nothing to do with the problem, and in a manner that has nothing do with the problem.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb for disobedience-based protests should be for one to ask themselves the question "if I didn't have any signs or slogans, would people be able to know or infer what it is I'm protesting and who I'm protesting against?"

If the answer is "no", then it seems like it's just disobedience for disobedience's sake...

For instance, the just stop oil protesters... If their shirts didn't say it, and they didn't yell it, would anyone know what the heck they were even upset about if the only clues were "they throw soup in museums, and glue their hands to snooker tables"?

For instance, if they blocked a path to an oil refinery or glued their hands to a gas pump so people couldn't use it, I'd at least be able to infer their protest was something oil related.

This is just victim blaming.

 

[DaisyDay]

I don't think there's any questions as to that aspect... He was a hot head packing heat and we already know the risks associated with that.

My question was what is there to gain by protesting in a manner that inconveniences random people who have nothing to do with the problem, and in a manner that has nothing do with the problem.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb for disobedience-based protests should be for one to ask themselves the question "if I didn't have any signs or slogans, would people be able to know or infer what it is I'm protesting and who I'm protesting against?"

If the answer is "no", then it seems like it's just disobedience for disobedience's sake...

For instance, the just stop oil protesters... If their shirts didn't say it, and they didn't yell it, would anyone know what the heck they were even upset about if the only clues were "they throw soup in museums, and glue their hands to snooker tables"?

For instance, if they blocked a path to an oil refinery or glued their hands to a gas pump so people couldn't use it, I'd at least be able to infer their protest was something oil related.

No one has any sympathy for a cause they never heard of. The first step in gaining sympathy for a cause is to make the problem known.

A temporary inconvenience is undoubtedly stressful - I used to commute in the greater New York metropolitan area where traffic jams can last hours.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

No one has any sympathy for a cause they never heard of. The first step in gaining sympathy for a cause is to make the problem known.

A temporary inconvenience is undoubtedly stressful - I used to commute in the greater New York metropolitan area where traffic jams can last hours.

What are the chances that people are going to join up after such a bad first initial experience with the activists?

Not to mention...if you're 100 cars back, you probably can't see the signs or hear the slogans anyway.

Attempt to "punish random people into awareness" just doesn't seem well thought out...if, that is, the goal is actually getting more people on board.

If it's just to give off the "radical" vibe for the sake of being radical...then I guess it does that depending on one's peer group

 

[ThatRobGuy]

This is just victim blaming.

I'm not blaming victims...I'm asking reasonable questions about methods of protest.

At no point did I take the guy's side who shot them.

 

[DaisyDay]

What are the chances that people are going to join up after such a bad first initial experience with the activists?

The initial impression is bad, of course, as no one likes being inconvenienced. However, I think a lot of people might come round because of the issues involved. Not everyone goes with their first impression.

Not to mention...if you're 100 cars back, you probably can't see the signs or hear the slogans anyway.

True enough but you would be likely to hear about it on the radio (especially the traffic and weather station), read about it, see a reference on tv or hear about it from co-workers and neighbors.

Attempt to "punish random people into awareness" just doesn't seem well thought out...if, that is, the goal is actually getting more people on board.

I doubt that is their take on it. "punish random people into awareness".

If it's just to give off the "radical" vibe for the sake of being radical...then I guess it does that depending on one's peer group

There are always likely dilettantes in every group, but I don't get that vibe from the mine protestors.

 

[Pommer]

What are the chances that people are going to join up after such a bad first initial experience with the activists?

Not to mention...if you're 100 cars back, you probably can't see the signs or hear the slogans anyway.

Attempt to "punish random people into awareness" just doesn't seem well thought out...if, that is, the goal is actually getting more people on board.

If it's just to give off the "radical" vibe for the sake of being radical...then I guess it does that depending on one's peer group

Lol they “protested wrongly”.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Lol they “protested wrongly”.

Some protestors do, in fact, protest in ways that are illogical.

Draw a logical line from "throw soup on a painting" & "glue my hand to a snooker table" to "oh, that person must be upset about fossil fuel usage" without any additional clues...can't really be done, can it?

If I start urinating on random people's driveways while throwing spaghetti at their house, does it give me de facto legitimacy as an activist so long as I yell "save the whales!" while I do it? Or would that approach to opposing the whaling industry undoubtedly lead to unnecessary conflict and a lot of people scratching their heads.

I think people should ask themselves "is this going to make the majority of people take my cause more seriously or less"

Unless, we want to go with the approach of "all protest is legitimate so long as it draws attention"...in which case, that would make the Bundy standoff a "legitimate form of protest"

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

I noticed a cop was able to be called to take care of the protesting. So, there was no reason to shoot the protesters.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I noticed a cop was able to be called to take care of the protesting. So, there was no reason to shoot the protesters.

Obviously...I don't think anyone is suggesting that people should start taking shots at protestors (regardless of how scatterbrained and illogical their method of protest is).

The example I used before was the people from the "Just Stop Oil" group who were attempting to damage things that had nothing to do with the Oil industry, but obviously they shouldn't be getting assaulted (or worse) by vigilantes.


The part I was making reference to earlier (that somehow got me accused of "victim blaming") was delving into how some of these forms of protest that are of this style of "I'm just going to disrupt the lives of anyone and everyone around until someone listens to me and gives me what I want" have the propensity for creating "incident waiting to happen" situations.

Acknowledging that certain things are more likely to incite violence, and making the recommendation to protestors that "hey, this is likely going to cause some problems that you're not considering right now"... is in no way advocating for the violence, it's simply a prudent analysis of what the bad outcomes could be an issuing a fair warning.


For instance, if PETA members who wanted to protest leather decided they were going to start going into random biker bars with a megaphone saying "You bikers are pansies for wearing the hide of an innocent animal!"...you don't have to be a genius to know that's not going to end well. And advising them against that and pointing out their level of culpability in knowingly creating a volatile situation that didn't need to happen doesn't mean one is "on the bikers' side" when someone ends up getting used as a human lawn dart in the parking lot.

 

[rambot]

The pro-life wing of the political spectrum seems to feel that shooting people in broad daylight can absolutely have just cause, if you have to wait for a few hours

 

[Larniavc]

Attempt to "punish random people into awareness" just doesn't seem well thought out...if, that is, the goal is actually getting more people on board.

If it's just to give off the "radical" vibe for the sake of being radical...then I guess it does that depending on one's peer group

The important thing here is two people got shot to death by a gun owner who were posing no risk to them?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The important thing here is two people got shot to death by a gun owner who were posing no risk to them?

Evaluating the upstream events in the pattern of escalation is important in order to prevent things like this from escalating to that point in the first place.

Especially when there's not been anything to suggest that this particular mode of protest is having any real positive impact on the changes sought out by the protestors who engage in it (for whatever reason they're doing it for)

The pro-life wing of the political spectrum seems to feel that shooting people in broad daylight can absolutely have just cause, if you have to wait for a few hours

If you look at how these style of protests play out...it's not just gun-toting Americans and Republican right-wingers who seem to be getting into tussles with folks who do this.

Facebook must be spying again (or it's pure coincidence that this showed up in the video feed for me despite the fact that I wasn't searching for it and haven't ever gone to the Daily Caller FB page)

But none the less, here's a montage of dust-ups happening in various places in the UK & Europe.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=626897929470329

Not to mention, what exactly is their (their being the protestors) best case scenario...do they think they're going to sit for 6-7 hours and that'll somehow force a vote in parliament?

I think back to this scene from the show "The Newsroom" where he's interviewing the protestor from Occupy.

 

[rambot]

If you look at how these style of protests play out...it's not just gun-toting Americans and Republican right-wingers who seem to be getting into tussles with folks who do this.

All I'm saying is that here on Christian forums, this is what we see.


To be clear: dust up ain't the same as cold blooded murder in broad daylight and to equivocate the two is...I dunno...not cool.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

All I'm saying is that here on Christian forums, this is what we see.


To be clear: dust up ain't the same as cold blooded murder in broad daylight and to equivocate the two is...I dunno...not cool.

Obviously I'm not equating the two...

I'm saying that one exists on the escalation path toward the other, and if we're seeing increases in the frequency of the "lesser altercations", it stands to reason that we should be concerned about more of the severe outcomes happening as well if we know that a certain percentage escalates to more than just a petty shouting match.

If we make a hypothetical color coding system....
Exchanging words and yelling
Throwing pitchers of water or grabbing their cell phones and throwing them on the ground
Pushing and shoving
Dragging people off of roads
Punching
Refusing to stop and just hitting them with their cars
Lethal Violence


Early on with these style of protests (for maybe the first year or so), the vast majority never escalated past the honking of horns and yelling. Occasionally you'd get a rare shoving match, and the incidents of someone actually hitting them with their cars you could count on one hand with fingers leftover (it was a headline news story when it would happen). The vast majority never went past "code yellow"

Now it's to the point where they almost all are escalating to code orange, and there's enough code red situations where there's video montages of it.

And this story from the OP obviously made it to code purple.


Perhaps a better way for me to explain my concern.
EX: If we know that 1 out of every 100 bar "dust ups" leads to someone pulling a weapon (which can end in death)

We should be concerned if we see the number of bar dust ups per year have gone from 100 to 600, as the math would imply that the end result could be 6 potentially lethal altercations instead of 1.

 

[Larniavc]

Evaluating the upstream events in the pattern of escalation is important in order to prevent things like this from escalating to that point in the first place.

Unstable lunatics should not be allowed to have guns. Or be brought up in a culture that worships guns.

There should be something like a Voight Kampff test for people who want to own guns.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Unstable lunatics should not be allowed to have guns. Or be brought up in a culture that worships guns.

There should be something like a Voight Kampff test for people who want to own guns.

Not familiar with the "Voight Kampff test" reference...

However, the guns aspect is secondary to the "willingness to escalate to lethal violence" aspect with regards to this topic specifically. (If the topic was just about guns in general, I'd be agreeing that they make unstable people more lethal in how they choose to act out for most situations)

Not sure if you caught the video montage I sent earlier, but it's already escalated to the point where drivers are regularly just driving through them. I suspect that if this guy was that unstable that he shot them, he would've been the same kind of person who was inclined to just step on the gas as a "plan B".

Having the guns removed from a bar fight situation makes a dispute less lethal. I don't know if there's that same benefit of "lethality reduction" when we're talking about disputes where one person is sitting on the road and the other is in a car.

Even if you look at a gun free society like the UK, things seem to be escalating in pretty nasty ways with regards to people engaging in this type of protest

This one I can't link the full video due to language:

...but this is the moment (after the lady in the car asked them to move twice between she needs to get her special needs son to school) that she just said to heck with it and started driving forward.

Here's another confrontation in the UK:

Here's another gun free altercation from Germany:

Guns or no guns...this is going to escalate until someone eventually gets smashed like a pancake in the middle of the road.

 

[Nithavela]

Not familiar with the "Voight Kampff test" reference...

However, the guns aspect is secondary to the "willingness to escalate to lethal violence" aspect with regards to this topic specifically. (If the topic was just about guns in general, I'd be agreeing that they make unstable people more lethal in how they choose to act out for most situations)

Not sure if you caught the video montage I sent earlier, but it's already escalated to the point where drivers are regularly just driving through them. I suspect that if this guy was that unstable that he shot them, he would've been the same kind of person who was inclined to just step on the gas as a "plan B".

Having the guns removed from a bar fight situation makes a dispute less lethal. I don't know if there's that same benefit of "lethality reduction" when we're talking about disputes where one person is sitting on the road and the other is in a car.

Even if you look at a gun free society like the UK, things seem to be escalating in pretty nasty ways with regards to people engaging in this type of protest

This one I can't link the full video due to language:
View attachment 339432

...but this is the moment (after the lady in the car asked them to move twice between she needs to get her special needs son to school) that she just said to heck with it and started driving forward.

Here's another confrontation in the UK:

Here's another gun free altercation from Germany:

Guns or no guns...this is going to escalate until someone eventually gets smashed like a pancake in the middle of the road.

The voight kampff test is a fictional test from the blade runner series which is used to tell artifical humans from real humans. I guess what is meant is that it would be neat to have a test which you can put people through before giving them guns and that could tell if they'd use the guns for illegal means.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The voight kampff test is a fictional test from the blade runner series which is used to tell artifical humans from real humans. I guess what is meant is that it would be neat to have a test which you can put people through before giving them guns and that could tell if they'd use the guns for illegal means.

I've actually never delved into the blade runner series, so that would explain why I'd never heard of it lol