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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

I think one of the things people are forgetting lately is that civil disobedience, while a legitimate part of protest, historically has carried with it consequences. Rosa Parks was jailed. So was Martin Luther King. If you're out there trying to fight the system, you have to expect the system to fight back a little. What we're seeing in the past couple of years is this expectation that civil disobedience be easy and consequence-free. "I'll just go down to the protest, snap some pics for my insta, and then go do my laundry later in the evening." "Oh, let's fly over to the Capitol, break some windows, and then next week continue our respectable jobs as realtors like nothing happened."

I think this new batch of middle-class, suburbanite, generally older, and yes, predominantly white protestors is a little shocked to learn what other protesters in the past have known for quite a while.

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Your comment has shades of "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences," which in my opinion is used to put all the responsibility onto the speakers and none on the reactions of the recipients of the message. I'm not saying your intent was to communicate that, but I feel like that's often the interpretation.

People aren't forgetting that civil disobedience means being uncomfortable, hurt, or jailed. For example, just because a protester reacts with contempt about what the mounted police did to two people doesn't mean that they were naive about the possibilities it might happen. One is a conscious, thinking awareness and the other an emotional reaction. Both can exist at the same time.

We aren't talking about a modern Rosa Parks. This person did not engage in civil disobedience, they simply donated $100 to a cause they supported.

I would say "working class" instead of middle class.

I make 220k and can't afford a house without taking massive amounts of debt.

The middle class is dead in the majority of Canada. Labor is being devalued exceedingly fast. There's little reward in working hard.

What work really gives you is the ability to purchase stocks, crypto and potentially receive newly minted currency from a bank in the form of a real estate loan.

You have to take a seat at the gambling table.

MLK wrote: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue"

The ironic part is that the state trying to impose consequences are usually part of the tension. The more aggressive that the state responds, the more tension is created. And that eventually leads to change.

> Rosa Parks was jailed.

Are we at the point where jailing of Rosa Parks is somehow used to mock and chastise people who just participated or supported a civil liberties protest? This is some bizarre mental gymnastics.

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