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Comment by cynicalkane | Hacker News Reader

I am not obligated to "reason" with anyone who stops me, illegally, and demands my attention. I don't see why it's different for the average Google employee.

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They blocked in a bus that was illegally parked. No one forced you to get on the bus that was violating city codes.

What these people are complaining about is a two tiered system, where one set of laws apply to the people who live in the city and another set apply to corporations like Google. Why should that bus get to do something that common citizens are not allowed to, simply because it's owned by a company instead of a person?

> Why should that bus get to do something that common citizens are not allowed to, simply because it's owned by a company instead of a person?

It shouldn't, but that's not an issue for a mob to take up. Call the police, or go talk to your local legislators if tech companies are being given unfair perks, but taking justice into your own hands is illegal for a very good reason.

If this was an issue about net neutrality, trade treaties, bitcoin, or any other number of issues then we'd have a thread full of people celebrating those protesters who were making their voices heard.

Instead we're rally behind some people who had to sit in a bus for an extra thirty minutes than they normally would. It's a miracle those poor souls managed to last as long as they did- can you imagine what kind of tragedy it would have been if the bus's wifi had broke down?

Protesting against the government is completely different from protesting against private individuals in a private bus.

That's not what I said.

What I said is that I'm not obligated to "reason" with someone that illegally demands my attention. Maybe abortion doctors should be obligated to "reason" with pro-life protestors, to open a conversation? Hey, a lot of time those guys aren't even breaking the law.

What the OP calls being an "uptight techie" I call being an ordinary human being in an allegedly civilized country.

You seemed to miss the guys point. If you park somewhere illegally and someone blocks you in, getting upset that they are doing something illegal while ignoring the fact that you are doing something similarly illegal everyday is pretty weird imo...

Not to not-pick, but just riding the bus that is illegally stopped probably isn't itself illegal (although the bus driver would likely be breaking some law or other).

Sure, but to say "wow this is totally ridiculous! what those people are doing is illegal" while never caring the least bit about the illegal thing they're taking part in is just so ridiculously self absorbed, which is kind of the root of the thing people are upset about.

It's a pretty generic 'taking the law in your own hand' argument though. If you illegally double park and as consequence, I illegally shoot you and your whole family, debating what I did is besides the point since the real debate should be about why you double parked.

That analogy is just a tiny bit more extreme then what actually happened.

Ya, it's a ridiculous example but I'm just pointing out the difficulty of codifying vigilantism into law. If illegally killing people who double park is not appropriate, is stealing their TV appropriate? Is hacking their email account appropriate? Who can appropriately be a vigilante? Is it appropriate for a victim who suffered physical injuries? Is it appropriate for a victim who felt offended? Is it appropriate for an eye witness? Is it appropriate for someone who saw it online?

This was a peaceful protest, not vigilante justice. Some people were unable to get to work on time. Where's the outrage about union workers not being able to get to work during a picketed protest?

...are you being serious?

Is it legal for a civilian to physically block a vehicle that is illegally parked and trying to leave? Or is that another two-tier system, where it's okay to block corporate vehicles but not individual vehicles?

If it was illegally parked, couldn't they just call the police to ticket the bus? If the city has chosen to allow the buses to use the Muni stops then the fight should be with the regulators/city not with Google. For example, in the Mission, you're allowed to park in the middle of the street on Sundays because of the need to accommodate churchgoers. This seems like another application of special rules that "common citizens" cannot normally do.

At the end of the day though, the bus protest is not really about the bus but about the overall situation with housing, power, and inequality.

You're not legally obligated, no. It would be a pretty damn good idea though if you wanted to be a positive force for society and mutual understanding.

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