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Protesting and doing it wrong
TheGerbil
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
First off some background.
Essentially this past weekend about 60 or so members of the Aryan Guard (White supremacist group) march through downtown Calgary. While I in no way sympathize with their beliefs, the fact that 400 protesters came and then proceeded to more or less attack them is pretty disgraceful I'd say, and would undermine what they are trying to accomplish.
I'm of the opinion that if your going to protest something keep it peaceful. Yes I disagree with their beliefs, but as long as their opinion remains that and they don't break the law, their right to free speech is just as important as my own. I'm curious as to what you guys think of this.
Essentially this past weekend about 60 or so members of the Aryan Guard (White supremacist group) march through downtown Calgary. While I in no way sympathize with their beliefs, the fact that 400 protesters came and then proceeded to more or less attack them is pretty disgraceful I'd say, and would undermine what they are trying to accomplish.
I'm of the opinion that if your going to protest something keep it peaceful. Yes I disagree with their beliefs, but as long as their opinion remains that and they don't break the law, their right to free speech is just as important as my own. I'm curious as to what you guys think of this.
TheGerbil on
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Turns out, that's also the least popular way to protest a hate group.
Actually, if you compare the number of people who did show up to the number of people who didn't show up, you'll find that the people who didn't show up is almost always in the majority :P
...
this logic is irrefutable. Damn you sir.
Wouldn't this also go against free speech?
I'm sorry.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Yeah, prohibiting a protest because it makes the government look bad is probably pretty poor ground to argue from, if you live somewhere that has anything like a right to free speech.
In this case during a week at the university where clubs and different groups have awareness and recruitment going on, the pro-life club had a board with a number of things, including pictures of what happens to fetus's during an abortion.
The student council is decidedly pro-choice, and they along with the heads of the University decided they didn't like it and so banned them from showing it. Cue shit storm to follow when they do so anyway. Big freedom of speech debate and court case still going on.
The biggest issue people had with this one was it seemed like a "we don't agree so you can't show it" deal, for while graphic, there were other boards showing scenes of genocide in Africa and the like so its not like graphic images was an issue.
Calgary? A bad image? NO!
Good times.
And in the end it's just impossible for any group who organizes a protest (or counter-protest) to guarantee the good behavior of every single person who shows up, so if the issue is as hot as this one is, something like this is bound to happen. Whenever it does, there's a tendency to write off everyone involved on one side or the other as a bunch of violent thugs, and to let the violence become the defining story of the event. In 99% of the cases, 99% of the protesters are doing it right, and if the 1% are a reason not to protest then we don't get to have civil action of this kind any more. I'm not excusing their behavior, but I understand that most of the time it simply can't be controlled, and I'd rather have protests with some risk of violence than no protests at all.
basically, in Canada, certain forms of speech can be considered acts of violence
this is true in the US as well to a lesser extent; harassment, threats, libel and slander, etc, are all potentially criminal acts and are treated as though you are doing violence to someone with your speech
but i thought in Canada we didn't permit hate-speech-associated rallies. i guess we don't go that far.
But not as good as Mercurial.
Beautiful.
hate speech in Canada is pretty specifically defined. It must occur in a public place and its speech that vilifies and incites feelings of hatred against an identifiable group either wilfully, or in such a way that it is likely it will lead to a breach of the peace.
So if the white supremacists were only walking or talking about how we need to lower immigration and must return Canada to its roots as a christian white country (which I think is what would be typically said in public by white supremacists) I don't think any hate speech laws were broken.
But yeah, violent protests pretty much hurt whatever cause you have.
Yeah that was pretty great