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Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

This is why a good leader lets the mob have it's day.

Stop a protest because it turns violent...well everyone kind of expects that. Even the protesters.

Try to stop a protest before it happens, or throw up logistical roadblocks...and you end up with the Civil Rights Era redux.

Always let people have their say...and get it over with. You can more easily stand a gut punch than death by a thousand cuts.

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That's what China tried 20-some years ago.

OK, I have to ask what is the meaning behind that comment. I do understand you are referring to the Tiananmen Square protests.

Before the crackdown, the Chinese government was willing to wait out the protests until people had their say and it was all over with. Except the protests went on, continuously, for months. If they had turned violent, they would have likely been able to overrun the central government entirely.

I'm not going to justify what the Chinese army did in Tiananmen Square, but what they did, they did as a last resort. If they had been a little more proactive and arrested the first few hundred people before it blew up, or impeded access into the square, or did anything to prevent that critical mass of people from assembling all in one place, it would be a different story.

OK thanks, so it sounds like you're saying that if the government allows even small peaceful protests, these could turn into larger ones that threaten the existing power structures, therefore protests should not be permitted at all?

I'm saying it's a complicated issue and no simplistic approach is going to work all of the time. I'm sorry I can't give you a grand unified theory about how governments should handle protestors.

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