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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

I have a question, do people really protest in designated areas in the US? I know sometimes there are riots but from what I can see on the media it looks like people gather somewhere close to the subject and chant and wave banners.

I find it strange because in Europe the norm is to disturb the daily life. Farmers spray policemen with milk, train operators stop working, the younger and more anarchist ones burn cars and clash with the police, the more pacifist ones tie or glue themselves to something making a huge scene.

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> I have a question, do people really protest in designated areas in the US?

No, people can protest wherever they want as a rule, under the freedom of assembly clause in the first amendment. It's pretty clear, and is well established (as are the exceptions). The wording of Article 12 in the E.U. fundamental rights charter is, by my reading, purposefully more restrictive than how the Supreme Court has generally interpreted "Freedom of Assembly" in the U.S., but I am not an expert on that.

In practice, you sometimes see things like "Free Speech Zones", which are indeed Orwellian, but also controversial and exceptional. You shouldn't think of them as the rule, because you also see things like the CHOP in Seattle.

In the US, the police (and people not involved in the protests) will happily beat you up, run you over, or shoot and kill you for disruptive protests.

Be fair. They'll do that for peaceful non-disruptive protests. Usually the term riot is applied after the cops start tear-gassing and the news can re-frame footage of people running away as "dangerous rioters".

Fun fact: most people arrested at protests end up arrested because they try to follow police instructions to disperse. The police keep directing them into a closed off area (aka bottling) and then arrest them in for failure to disperse.

I mean, they won't just happily do _all_ of that. You're exaggerating a bit and using extreme cases as if they were the norm. In particular you may say this with a straight face only if you're unaware of how this actually is the common reality of other countries.

We've all heard of cases of police running over crowds in some circumstances, or of the odd shooting (actually when?). But that's not what the average protester in the US will realistically, honestly deal with on the average protest.

I've participated in quite a bit of peaceful protesting. I've never been shot at, but the number of times I've been teargassed for being in a park or on a sidewalk during the "permitted hours" and in the "designated zone" is much higher than the expected 0.

At least 830 documented incidents in 2020 including over 140 police violence incidents against journalists specifically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_violence_incide...

There have been 104 incidents of vehicles driving into protests between May 27 and September 27, 2020, with two fatalities in that time period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vehicle-ramming_incide...

While police violence is a problem, this comment is wildly off base.

I don't think it's wildly off base: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS-RWsl7l5c

This is a noteworthy outlier that received significant criticism. It is not normative. And while pepper spray is non trivial, it is a far cry from:

> happily beat you up, run you over, or shoot and kill you for disruptive protests.

In the US I bet any farmer who sprays police with milk would be instantly shot

Two years ago, we had protesters literally set police precinct on fire, and not only nobody got shot, but in fact nobody faced any consequences.

They didn't just set it on fire, they literally burned it to the ground. I watched live streams of the police abandoning the precinct building.

Elsewhere, people were firing fireworks mortars into occupied federal buildings, with little to no recourse.

"Good" protesters were overshadowed in media coverage of "bad" protesters, but I also saw a grocery store get completely ransacked for no reason other than people decided they could. There was so much damage that the store was closed for months to renovate, turning a poor neighborhood into a food desert.

Those "bad" protesters were from the "pro police" side: https://www.police1.com/george-floyd-protest/articles/man-se...

According to the article, only one of the five people charged was a member of the boogaloo boys, and he was charged for firing a weapon; he wasn't involved in any of the arson charges.

Also note the entire crowd chanting "burn it down".

This is a lie. They were convicted and sentenced to prison: https://www.police1.com/george-floyd-protest/articles/man-se...

Also worth noting that the people who started the fire were there because they thought people protesting police violence was bad - they weren't dangerous liberals or antifa or whatever other nonsense you'll spew: they were far-right "bugaloo boys"

Just remember they were 'fiery but mostly peaceful' protests according to the mainstream media.

Considering the inability of US police to successfully shoot farmers who spray police with bullets I think your bet might fail.

But consider this: what if the farmers have a darker skin color

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