Tag: protests

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general freedom international affairs

June 4: Tiananmen 32

China, protests, freedom, democracy

Will truth ever be bought-off or beaten-down enough to satisfy Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Butchers of Beijing?

The ‘Butchers’ nickname came 32 years ago today — from the clearing of Tiananmen Square by soldiers and tanks in the early morning hours of June 4th, and in opening fire on and murdering thousands of Chinese citizens outside the square. 

Someone may object that Xi, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2012, can’t be blamed. He wasn’t in charge back in 1989.

Xi didn’t give the order for troops to kill the unarmed students and workers who filled Tiananmen Square for weeks with as many as a million people protesting for freedom and democracy. Nor did he have thousands more arrested and imprisoned after the massacre. In fact, Xi’s father “condemned the use of force against protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests,” informs U.S. News. 

But Xi cannot escape the taint of Tiananmen. Not only does Human Rights Watch charge that government repression under his unlimited rule is “at its worst level since the Tiananmen Square massacre,” Xi and today’s CCP are on a mission to memory-hole Tiananmen. 

How? 

By massacring any public memorial of the massacre.

While the truth about Tiananmen has always been verboten in China, freer folks in Hong Kong held massive memorials each year. “Last year’s vigil was banned for the first time because of the coronavirus,” Yahoo News explains, “but thousands defied police and rallied anyway.”

This year, however, the new national security law threatens five years in prison for attending an unauthorized rally. Chanting “Democracy for China!” could land a Hongkonger in prison for life.*

Thankfully, in America today we have the freedom to condemn the Chinazis. 

And remember June 4. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And it has already begun: “Hong Kong cracks down on Tiananmen commemorations, arrests vigil organiser.”

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Down Among the Non Sequiturs

BLM, Black Lives Matter, protests, riots, property, Antifa

There is a rule in respectable writing, particularly academic: don’t quote “down.”

This means that academics don’t cite newsletter writers as authorities, scientists don’t consult table-rappers as purveyors of relevant data, politicians don’t quote tweets.

But of course that’s all changed now, thanks to Trump.

Which perhaps excuses me to deal with a simple Facebook “meme” that I’ve seen shared around among progressives. It’s a deceptively simple question; the point in criticizing it is not to castigate the person who first posed it.

Here it is: “Why is murder an appropriate response to property damage, but property damage isn’t an appropriate response to murder?”

I confess: this really startled me. Not because it is hard to answer, but because what it says about discourse in our time.  

Note what is obviously wrong with it:

1. Murder is not an apt response to anything, for murder is unlawful and/or immoral killing. The premise is absurd.

2. Some people do indeed kill rioters and others who are attacking them or their property. This can be justified because self-defense is the basis of all our rights, and a violent attack doesn’t just fit into neat little “I’m only destroying your property” box. 

3. The proper response to murder, after the fact of some violent moment, is lawful arrest and trial, not killing. Self-defense is for moments of conflict. Some time after an illegal act? Then we proceed by the rule of law.

Of course, this little thought experiment was designed to justify riots.

It does not.

It justifies, really, only this episode of

Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture media and media people U.S. Constitution

The Mobs Attacked and Defended

Portland, riots, protests, Ted Wheeler

It’s “mobocracy” — the riots in major cities around the nation, but especially in Portland, Oregon, where the president sent federal agents. Local police had stood back for weeks as Democratic politicians — such as Joe Biden — referred to the rioters as “peaceful protesters.” Even as the mobs lit fires in the streets, defaced property, and attempted to break into government buildings.

Buck Sexton, writing at The Hill, makes the obvious linkage between the “anarchists” and the “Democratic” Party. 

But Sexton doesn’t really answer the key questions: “Why are anarchists terrorizing Portland? What was the real purpose of the Seattle ‘Capital Hill Autonomous Zone’? Why were ‘Occupy City Hall’ protesters allowed to fight with police in lower Manhattan for a month, until officers cleared out their encampment on Wednesday?” Sexton rejects the official reasons give by the movements’ apparent leaders, but doesn’t go very far beyond Democratic Party attempts to leverage the riots.

Which may at least offer amusement. “The reason I am here tonight is to stand with you,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler assured the mob as he put on goggles. “So if they’re launching the tear gas against you, they’re launching the tear gas against me.” But that same night, his security detail “scuffled” with “protesters” and his own police department threatened to use tear gas and impact weapons on the incendiary horde.

Is this really about legitimate protest, as Biden insists?

Fighting federal fascism, as Democrats and many others insist?

Americans are all-in for criminal justice reform and the right to protest. Many, me included, have peacefully taken to the streets in recent weeks.

But there is nothing peaceful about assault, arson, property destruction.

And Democrats who aim to use the fracas to beat Trump in November may find that ‘playing with fire’ . . . burns. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment Fourth Amendment rights

Cops vs. Mobs, Tyranny vs. Law?

Portland, riots, protests

“He was stuffed into what may have been a rental van operated by unmarked federal agents,” explained Cato Institute’s Patrick Eddington, “and taken to the federal courthouse, where he was interrogated without counsel. He wisely refused to answer questions and was then subsequently released without any kind of charges being filed.”

Eddington concluded: “I think most people would call that kidnapping.” 

The “he” — detained and questioned by federal agents* in Portland, Oregon — is Mark Pettibone. Whether the van was rented is irrelevant, nor do these agents or their vehicles require any marking.

And criminal suspects can lawfully be held for questioning. 

“So that we understand how police may remove someone from the streets,” Cato Daily Podcast host Caleb Brown adroitly offered, “we understand that they need to identify themselves. . . . that people who are placed under arrest retain certain rights to communicate with the outside world, to assert their ability to have a lawyer present for questioning.

“It seems that perhaps,” added Brown, “asking for a lawyer was the trigger here” resulting in Mr. Pettibone’s release.

Eddington agreed, but then announced that it “really does have the feel of Argentina or Chile in the 1970s, with the disappearances that took place. The only thing lacking was Mr. Pettibone being murdered by those agents.”

That is one big “only”!

“This is being done essentially to try to suppress protests in this country,” argued Eddington. “It has nothing to actually do with protecting monuments.” 

“We’re talking only about violent rioters,” Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told NPR. “We’re not talking about actual protesters. We’re not seeking to interfere at all with anyone peacefully expressing themselves — period, full stop.”

Following the rule of law means protecting peaceful protests. And welcoming an investigation into the federal role in Portland. More concerning than Mr. Pettibone’s detention is the continued use of so-called non-lethal weapons, which seriously injured a protester weeks ago.

But the rule of law also means protecting Portlanders and their property against violence and destruction. And welcoming an investigation into the state and local dereliction of duty in Portland. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that agents with the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) were “cross designated to support FPS” (the Federal Protection Service) in Portland “because of the demand for more manpower in light of the violence.”

Note: Walter Olson, a senior fellow at The Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and founder of the blog, Over​lawyered​.com, details what we know about the Portland controversy. 

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crime and punishment folly

Qualified Backlash

backlash, riots, police, brutality,

Extreme forms of protest — that is, rioting, looting, and street violence, as well as chanting about killing people, carrying torches, and the like — don’t help the cause of those who engage in it.

You know it; I know it — but is it common knowledge?

So, as a contribution to the common wisdom of Homo (hopefully) sapiens politicus, let us stress the truth, which we can now back up with a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

Eric W. Dolan, writing on PsyPost, explains that six experiments involving 3, 399 participants “assessed how different types of protest behaviors influenced support for a variety of progressive and conservative social causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement and the anti-abortion movement. They found that more extreme behaviors — such as the use of inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and vandalism — consistently resulted in reduced support for social movements.”

While “extreme protest behaviors” garner media attention, they turn away more people than they bring in.

“We found extreme anti-Trump protest actions actually led people to not only dislike the movement and support the cause less, but to be willing to support Trump more,” the researcher who talked to Dolan, said. “It was almost like a backlash.”

Almost?

Protest organizers have to understand that their enemies also know this backlash effect, and have incentives to corrupt peaceful protests by sparking extremism. Infiltrators from governments as well as opposing groups have been known to incite riots or cause destruction simply to discredit protests. 

While destruction and mayhem by some do not negate the crying, dying need for criminal justice reform,* the tragedy remains: violence does spoil good will.

And calling in federal troops, as the president threatens, discredits almost everything. What a mess.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Much better than the turn to violence? Protest morphing into specific legislative and administrative reform. Ending “qualified immunity” for public officials, mentioned here Friday, and proposed by Representative Justin Amash (L-Mich.), would be a great start.

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Who’s Banned What?

Facebook, censorship, protests, corona virus, Covid, pandemic, epidemic,

Has dissent about pandemic policy been outlawed? 

I mean, “for the duration”?

Well, no. 

The Internet displays every possible view of policy and epidemiology, expressed with every possible degree of temperateness or intemperateness.

Yet we are indeed seeing signs of indifference to freedom of speech even when that speech cannot entail breathing a coronavirus on anybody.

According to CNN, Facebook told the network: “Anti-quarantine protests being organized through Facebook in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska are being removed from the platform on the instruction of governments in those three states because it violates stay-at-home orders.”

Online posts “violate stay-at-home orders”? 

Who knew? 

Obviously, a protest that violates social-distancing rules (if it does) is not the same thing as a communication about the protest.

Apparently, Facebook is a willing functionary of whichever state governments will instruct it to carry out their censorship. Tyler O’Neil opines that “it is disconcerting that Facebook would work with local governments to remove pages organizing protests against them.” 

Yes, indeed.

But such reports have been disputed. Facebook may be acting on its own. For example, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says that his office “did not ask Facebook to remove pages or posts for events promoting lifting the provisions of the Governor’s stay-at-home order.” Nebraska also denies making such a request. 

Which version of the story is true? 

Which is worse? 

Both are creepy.

I just hope that this muzzling-speech-just-to-help thing doesn’t start spreading like a virus.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

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Facebook, censorship, protests, corona virus, Covid, pandemic, epidemic,

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