Hacker News Reader

Comment by bingbangboom | Hacker News Reader

No, you can't just occupy private property as a protest. Hence why they were arrested.

You certainly can occupy private property as a protest, if you get arrested afterwards is immaterial to the fact that you can indeed do the as a protest.

People throw pies at politicians faces as a protest and they're often arrested afterwards for assault, but it doesn't mean they can't do it.

You’re obtusely mistaking the word “can” to mean “physically able” when in this context it clearly means “is permissible.”

Can you murder someone? Even if you are physically capable of pulling a trigger, I think you know damn well that’s not what anyone means.

Am I using the word in that way?

Sit-ins are an old protest tactic. They were used during the civil rights movement, in private property. They were used during labour protest, in private property. They have repeatedly been successful at achieving the protestors ends. They have repeatedly, in hindsight, been viewed in a favorable light and broadly seen as permissible. They were frequently, at the time, viewed as illegitimate and impermissible. Of course, there were other sit-ins which failed and were very much unpopular and were unjustified.

That's some 'Comaneci perfect 10' level semantic gymnastics. Honestly I'm impressed.

That's what they said about Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks wasn’t trespassing or interfering with anyone else. And she wasn’t on private property; she was on a public conveyance. She had every right as a paying passenger to be on that bus.

Rosa Parks was both trespassing (she was subsequently arrested, the exchange shockingly resembles the one here) and interfering with folks that her race was legally proscribed from interfering with.

We should all be glad that the view of "she should have just founded her own capitalist, nonwhites-only bus company" did not prevail.

(Google's anti-Gazan defense-dealing is the bus company, in this example)

Those are some interesting uses of the words “trespassing” and “interfering.”

You’ll find a copy of her arrest warrant here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/rosa-parks-montgomery-...

“It took the police a couple of tries to settle on legal language describing her alleged offense.”

That's a pretty interesting use of the word "interesting". As I said, the exchange shockingly resembles the one here ('sorry, but if you dont leave, Im gonna have to have you arrested' or some equivalent), and she was interfering with folks that her race was legally proscribed from interfering with, as Palestinians are often legally proscribed from interfering with Israelis.

>“It took the police a couple of tries to settle on legal language describing her alleged offense.”

You say that as if we don't all already know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. What took a bunch of racists a couple of tries to eventually settle upon is irrelevant. Similarly, the police in this case may take a couple of tries to eventually settle upon legal language, but we nonetheless all know that the actual offense was upsetting the order of the apartheid. Just like Rosa Parks.

My point was that her offense was neither trespass nor interference with others, contrary to your claim. So actually trespassing and interfering with others at work doesn’t make you a Rosa Parks—even if you or others think you’re doing the right thing.

Besides, Ms. Parks herself was impacted by the unjust laws that required her to sit at the back of the bus. It’s unclear how Google’s activities directly and substantially impacted the lives of the protestors here.

My point was that Rosa Parks' offense, whatever the racist police's explanation for it, was indeed interfering with apartheid. There is no "contrary to the claim" there. Rosa Parks was indeed arrested according to some legal framework around preserving an apartheid, just like here. Maybe they took some time to "settle upon legal language". Maybe the police here will, too. Either way, both cases are around protestors protesting apartheid and being arrested under some charges that the apartheid-preserving powers conjured up.

To address your edit:

Rosa Parks was protesting the treatment African Americans were receiving, these workers were protesting the treatment Gazans are receiving.

Laws against trespass to property exist in every nation that has private property rights. (They protect you, too.) There’s no “conjuring up” of trumped-up charges going on here.

Sometimes laws preserve apartheid.

In those cases, it is better to violate the law than to preserve apartheid.

Just like Rosa Parks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com