be more respectful or the sarcasm pope might punch you!

inquire if anyone would be inconvenienced by their protests, have color co-ordinated signs, no loud chanting...

Do not offend the deeply held believes of those who do believe Obama is a Marxist. There is no need to provoke them.

EarlG always does a great job with those.

Change occurs when elected officials enact policies. Policies are enacted when elected officials feel enough pressure from voters and stakeholders. Where's the evidence that protests like this have any influence on the process?

I trust, by the way, that nobody will be demanding that the protesters deserve to be immune from prosecution, as with the BART protest?

Seriously? How on Earth can you call yourself a liber/progressive/Democrat/what-have-you and not understand that protests motivate change?

I see change coming from directly interacting with elected and Government officials who actually implement change.

Consider net neutrality. Did the FCC respond to the tens of thousands of public comments, or the protestors who showed up at the FCC Chair's house?

a productive/best/only method of advancing the goals of that strategy.

Inconvenience for the sake of inconvenience, or to be 'doing something,' should not be part of the strategy...

Perfect and welcome to DU.

quite another to call protesters morons and assholes. It's not hard to sense where those people are most likely really coming from. My guess is that they personally have done NOTHING to try and end the murder of our citizens by the police.

People are all about the free speech right now, but if it incoveniences them or applies to something other than religion - it's off.

I somehow doubt that blocking traffic for hours on a major interstate generated a lot of sympathy and support for their cause, living here in the Northeast I expect that the protesters mostly made people angry.

The protest also placed a person's life at risk because of the traffic:
"Due to protesters shutting down I-93, Easton's Ambulance 1 had to divert from a local Level 1 trauma center to a local hospital. They were the unable to get into Boston in a reasonable transport time, affecting the patient's ability to get to the proper hospital for treatment."

http://www.wsvn.com/story/27856668/protesters-shut-down-rt-93-in-milton-medford

That's what they did.

in New York? We're all inconvenienced.

If one of my loved ones died because their ambulance was held up by these morons, I would sue them until there was no tomorrow.

Protests bring inconvenience.

isn't "inconvenience".

It's potential endangerment.



It scares and disgusts me to think that nobody gets that.

Last year my daughter had an extremely scary health issue and had to be rushed to the hospital. It's bad enough that she was terrified. Had they been held up in traffic for any reason, she could have died.


So yeah, I realize how some people will think I'm totally selfish about caring more about the life of my daughter than someone else's "right" to endanger others, but that's the way it goes, I guess.

that were yammering on the phone and get into a fender bender, or morons slowing way down to gawk at someone changing a tire. It doesn't take much to get traffic hideously snarled.

These people are deliberately going out of their way to screw the whole day for a lot of people, and like I said, if they got one of my family members killed I would sue them until absolutely every legal avenue was exhausted.

It might feel like some small vindication, though.

I'd bet they wouldn't do it again.


If people are going to protest, why the hell don't they "inconvenience" the ones they're pissed off with instead of making everyone else (i.e. innocent people) suffer?

I don't think they succeeded in their goal, I think they drove many who might have been mildly sympathetic or who at least neutral in the wrong direction.

Freedom March cause anger and resentment. Freedom march caused traffic delays.

(insert distinction without a difference below)

Oh, you mean we should strike a balance between driving our supporters away and being irrelevant to avoid annoying people.

Every time I am inconvenienced and/or annoyed by a group of people, I want to go right out and support their espoused cause.

The protesters marched on the sidewalk and didn't block traffic.

The police didn't arrest anyone.

Sorry to disappoint you.

...and I'm delighted that, for better or worse, those who chose not to listen to their free speech weren't forced to.

Irrelevant to avoid disruptions.

The title was a facetious twist on the OP.

There are a handful of the self-absorbed who place a higher priority on their convenience than on civil right. They are adorable little fellas, and we all of us afford them all the validity they are in fact, warranted.

Complain all you want about self-entitled people who don't appreciate the importance of your protest. If your protest doesn't change any minds, it's the wrong tactic.

Much as the Freedom March inconvenienced people and caused traffic delays?

2) SINCE the Freedom March (50 odd years ago), name a issue that has been successfully resolved through protest marches.

Like all those suckers who protested the Iraq war.

Make it impossible to ignore whatever grievance is being protested about imo.

I once saw guy who was protesting the cops, he stood outside a police department with this giant dildo with the word cop written on it. He then proceeded to drop his pants, bend over and try to insert that dildo inside of his ass. That was a protest I will remember and one that got the cops to drop their donuts and stop him before he hurt himself.

The traffic stopping thing, I have already forgotten, what were they protesting again?

America. In a f---ing nutshell.

If you want to stand against animal abuse, protest a business that supports animal abuse. If you want to stand against elderly abuse, you protest a business that commits elderly abuse. If you want to stand against police brutality, protest a police department.

When people are too self-absorbed to care about a guy trying to get to his job and make a living, that is a true example of privilege.

convenience store