the only acceptable condition to use it maybe if there are riot or violence breakout in that area not for peaceful protest
It just screams "escalation" to me.
Which I think is likely, but also a bad decision. Generally speaking, the job of a legitimate government is to make violent protest unnecessary. So depending on the situation, the best action may indeed be to back down and rethink how things got there in the first place, rather than continuing to provoke more violence. Continuing to escalate is not a sustainable strategy for anyone that intends to maintain power for long, as the numbers are not generally on their side.
the point of these weapon is not "defeat" but mostly to crowd control right because you cant rule out if there is no crime even in peaceful protest, both things can be true at the same time
also if such weapon is not permanently injure or harm people, I can see why this weapon is in need like pepper spray
You don't break up a gathering because there's the possibility of crimes occurring unless you live in an authoritarian society.
of course who give a shit is the owner, its all sunshine until it happen on your neighbourhood
Thank you for engaging in good faith.
I mean you're talking about using violence against people to stop or prevent property damage. Most options are off the table in the moment, in the same way you can't execute someone if you catch them vandalizing your car. Smashing their fingers with a hammer wouldn't probably kill them but you can't do that either.
After-the-fact repercussions like criminal charges or civil liabilities, well, it doesn't matter how they feel about it? That's not how court works.
Why can't some reasonable degree of force be used to prevent property damage? What moral dilemma exists that makes protecting property deserve a comparison to executing someone?
No one said that. It was suggested that physically injuring someone in direct retaliation for property damage wasn't appropriate. Add to that the fact that riot control measures are hardly targeted.
There are many non-violent options available. Sometimes rioters will escalate violently against the officers carrying those out. It's far less likely anyone objects to proportionate and necessary use of force in such cases.
I'm also curious, what kind of effective, 'non-violent' means are there to control the initial mob-martyrs, and ensure level-handed justice is served? Those looking to escalate will use any police activity against them or their group as justification to do so.
> Those looking to escalate will use any police activity against them or their group as justification to do so.
As I previously pointed out, once rioters escalate against the officers themselves most people are unlikely to raise objections to targeted use of force. That's quite different than a paramilitary force lashing out violently at anyone perceived to be up to no good.
My disagreement is that the ongoing or imminent unlawful destruction of property should be allowed to be met with _appropriate_ deterring force, whether by law enforcement or by the property owners. I argue that because in a system of individual rights that include property ownership, the position that an impassioned crowd has more right to that property than the owner (by damaging or destroying it in this case) is morally indefensible.
> once rioters escalate against the officers themselves most people are unlikely to raise objections to targeted use of force.
That is untrue for at least the last decade or so. After the 2015 Baltimore riots, President Obama couldn't even popularly get away with referring to rioters as "thugs"[1] after ~300 businesses were damaged, 60 buildings set on fire, 113 police officers injured and 27 drugstores looted. Since then, there have been plentiful riots and mass demonstrations that either turned violent or otherwise sheltered violent activity, including the moment in 2020 that spawned the "mostly peaceful protests" meme of the reporter with a building burning down behind him because of the rose-tinted glasses public analysts used in their coverage. Mayors and governors gave lip service to violent demonstrations like CHAZ/CHOP [2] while violence was taking place, and only tepidly supported law enforcement's presence to curtail it after the fact.
_To this day_ those actions are routinely and popularly dismissed as racial outrage, justified, etc. largely along political boundaries, all to the detriment of the thousands of individuals whose livelihoods were damaged or destroyed as result. The idea that good consciences will win the day and protestors will distance themselves from n'er-do-wells among them is, as a standard, irreconcilable with the countless recorded hours of protest footage that exist.
Rights aren't trumped by implicit public vote to destroy your property, any more than two thieves can vote that they need their victim's wallet more than them, or a gang of rapists can hold a 5-1 vote for consent. QED, immediate and active threats against property should, morally and legally, warrant an appropriate amount of force to defend it.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/29/us/baltimore-riots-thug-n-wor... [2] https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/chop-seattle-mayor-walks-b...
That is a blatant straw man. The original position is more or less that nonviolent enforcement action must precede use of force. You are arguing to start off with violence, and even to apply that to perceived precrime ("ongoing or imminent" in your words).
To be fair regarding your wording, depending on your definition of "imminent" and the crime in question I might be able to agree. But that doesn't appear to be the case here.
To the rest of your comment, you seem very politicized. Most of what you wrote is non sequitur to the point that it doesn't seem feasible or worthwhile to respond. An outraged minority on social media is not the "most people" I was referring to (indeed they are a clear minority). The mainstream media exhibiting an agenda about a particular event has approximately nothing to do with the general principles we were supposedly discussing here.
Why should your interest in asserting property rights be permitted to trump human rights and due process?
It can, of course. If a police officer sees an individual engaging in property damage, that officer may walk over to that person and arrest them. If that person resists arrest, the officer can use appropriate force.
If you're talking about using force against innocent individuals who happen to be nearby, of course that is both outrageous and out of the question.
Absolutely. You can heal from those. LRADs are maiming weapons designed to cause permanent damage. Under any reasonable legal system their use would be considered a war crime.
There hasn’t been much research on long term health impacts, but it’s not a tool to maim people.
https://phr.org/our-work/resources/health-impacts-of-crowd-c...
Speaking in hyperbole is counter productive to thoughtful discussion
Threshold of pain: 120-140 dB(SPL)
Risk of instantaneous noise-induced hearing loss: 120dB(SPL)
A sonic weapon must cause pain to be effective. Any sound that reliably causes pain is capable of causing instant hearing damage. Therefore any sonic weapon is necessarily a maiming weapon and is designed as such. There is no hyperbole.
yet another reason to ensure footage looks like 'nothing terrible happened to these people' as expertly trained cop uses a weapon of war against civilians.
Just intuitively, I know many people with degraded hearing from concerts. And that hearing is gone, that’s how hearing loss works.
I think the people who designed these weapons aren’t anywhere close to stupid enough to think these won’t cause long term damage. Which means that the only explanation is they INTEND for them to cause long term damage.
> I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to realize loud noise = hearing loss.
Being a doctor and understanding that the levels people are exposed are not maiming if the thing is used “by design” should carry some significant weight in how you think about this.
Leave. The moment it turns into a riot you’re doing damage to your cause. (If you’re in a protest and see hooligans, restrain them.)
It may be that this protest in Serbia got a bit rowdy and riotous (see "diversity of tactics") and now the headline is about the government's use of a disproportionate weapon against protestors, not about a riot.
One motif of Allinsky's message is the importance of organisation. Triggering tear gas against your peaceful protest is one thing. Losing control of it such that stores start getting looted is not.
> It may be that this protest in Serbia got a bit rowdy and riotous (see "diversity of tactics") and now the headline is about the government's use of a disproportionate weapon against protestors
This is the first-order effect. They got a tweet. (Not a headline.)
I'm sceptical they'll get a second because this isn't a clear case of a nonlethal weapon being used against a peaceful crowd, it's something more muddled, and as a result there are zero comments in this thread discussing what the protesters are protesting.
It's been going since November. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the prelude to a civil war.
They got a headline https://apnews.com/article/serbia-protest-sonic-weapon-85025...
> Serbian officials deny illegal sonic weapon attack on peaceful protesters
Right to assemble is not a blank check for violent action, or even to assemble wherever and whenever your want.
Your right to assembly remains. You just made a risk-adjustment decision about not participating in a riot. The correct thing to do is go home, regroup and join the protest leadership to help plan another protest where the hooliganism is kept in check.
Also, not being in Serbia myself I'm reluctant to make judgements from afar about what degree of hooliganism is justified in this case.
Correct. Escalating from peaceful to violent protest shouldn't (I'd argue cannot) be responsibly decided in the moment.
If you went to a peaceful protest "that was starting to get a bit rowdy," the situation clearly changed from underneath you. Go home. Take stock. Decide if what you saw was random rioting or targeted violence. If the latter, decide if and how you can help and if it will make things better or worse.
I'm struggling to imagine non-Hollywood scenarios where someone showing up to peacefully protest is useful when it effectively escalates to civil war.
The people who have the state-sanctioned monopoly on violence are the ones who get to decide when a protest becomes a riot or unlawful assembly.
I’m not saying they’re always wrong but when only one group gets to pull the card that allows them to shut down protest it creates perverse incentives.
Practically, the media and the public at large. I forgot the source, but you can pretty much directly see the negative effect of e.g. bridge blocking on public sympathy for a cause.
But it’s trivial for police to incite violence. We saw it all the time in the US during BLM protests. A protest starts peacefully, then the protesters are pushed by riot control, then rubber bullets are fired into the peaceful protest, and now it’s not peaceful. Sometimes the protesters would even get surrounded and flanked so they can’t escape the descent into a riot.
If change does occur, what will happen is they will repaint history to make it seem as if the most cowish placid of the protests brought the change, to fool the public. And people actually believe it.
I'm struggling to remember any rioting in the Maidan.
I guess I wouldn't characterise such focussed use of violence as "starting to get a bit rowdy." Rowdiness specifically implies unruliness, a lack of discipline. I'd also say that escalating from peaceful to violent protest is not a decision one should take in the moment--catapults and molotov cocktails imply preparation.
You cannot fight against violence without violence. Violence is most effective when it's implied/threatened, before it is materialized.
The goal of protests are:
1) To serve as a show of force (they are literally called demonstrations in some languages because you demonstrate your ability to organize and act - large numbers of people are capable of large amounts of violence).
2) To paint your side as the victim by provoking an overreaction.
Westerners often think that 2 is sufficient because they live in democracies where a large part of the government is also unwilling to use violence and become the aggressor. But against a dictator who is willing to use as much violence against the people as is available to him, 2 alone is worthless.
Goal 2 only serves to maximize the number of people willing to rise up but the real goal is to break the enemy's will to fight. Either to make the dictator lose his nerve and flee or to kill him because corpses don't have a will.
The point is it's a delicate balancing act to paint yourself as victim/weak to get more support and angry/strong to make the dictator back down. Westerners focus on the first part because it works against their governments but against greater oppression, you will not get anywhere without actual will to fight and kill.
well you wrong, in fact you can. latest news is US Navy bomb houthi as we talk right now
You cant do violence if you well die, it is effective
That would explain why they seem to be so eager to employ violence against peaceful protestors.
No. The trigger was "a protest that was starting to get a bit rowdy." Not a peaceful protest that gets gassed. The latter is extremely effective at generating public sympathy.
Ever wondered why protests always turn violent very shortly after the government decides it's time to disperse them?
Governance is maintaining public support for the government having a monopoly on violent escalation.
If the government does not have this power, then any person has an individual veto over the rest of the country.
Laws are used to describe how and when individuals can protest.
Many protests get a charitable assumption in the US as a legacy of civil rights and the Vietnam anti-war movements. However, I think a lot of that good will is eroding.
Each country has different perceptions, and ultimately, each protest is different (e.g. who shot first, is it abuse, ect)
They lob a rock in the general direction of their buddies and Bob's your uncle.
Years ago someone caught some campus cops tossing some bricks into the bed of one of their pickups behind their station.
They claimed they'd removed them from a section of sidewalk where they'd come loose and become a hazard. First time I've ever heard of a cop doing something like that...
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/06/jim-himes...
Anyways, to my point, clearly observable in that picture are security shutters, on the sides of the window, left open and unlocked. I might have closed and locked those.
I also feel like that’d have a counterproductive effect.