Well, it's kind of hard for the movement to get organized, seeing how black lives matter is more of an idea than an organization. It started out as a twitter hashtag, no one owns it, so that kind of makes it hard for anyone to claim to be the *true* leader of the black lives matter movement.  Even if a leader emerged who somehow did have the legitimacy to claim that their organization *owns* black lives matter, that doesn't mean all of its members are going to stop acting like thugs. I mean the Baltimore Police Department has organization, leaders, and a defined goal, but that didn't stop some random fuckwits from that organization from breaking a man's back with their bad driving. It seems to me like their goal is apparent enough, their goal is for the police to get away with fewer murders.

If it's not apparent enough, these are BLM's goals.



Oh hey this ties back to the first page.



I guess this is why they don't need to shut up.

Maybe this is another example why is bad idea to be an group based on fucking hashtag cough gamergate cough. Maybe they should stop being a vague idea of stopping police homicide and actually do something beyond productive. As I said charities, watchdog organisations, petitioning the government (or state america is weird) for better police training and standards. Anything is better than being random yahoos.

There's nuance, and then there is hairsplitting. Freedom to peaceably assemble is not free speech, its just in the same Constitution Amendment so its spoken of in shorthand as part of the right to free speech.

As for the street disruption, demonstrating in the street and disrupting traffic is a thing that happens a lot. It happens in the US, it happens in other countries. Unless the government is some sort of oppressive regime, they usually don't hold the demonstrators directly accountable for the death of someone caused by the disruption (even though someone always makes that argument: Oh, you were demonstrating because you were starving? Well you shouldn't have blocked that ambulance! You thought you were oppressed before...).

Its a disruptive protest.

In a disruptive protest, the protesters disrupt the convenience of others to force them to hear/acknowledge/respond their message. When protests like this take place, its because the protesters believe the non-disruptive protests are ineffective or have failed (which they usually do because they can be ignored), and feel strongly enough about their cause to take their protest to the next level. Pretty sure at this point they are aware blocking a bridge puts people at risk because it disrupts emergency services, and are willing to risk that price to themselves and others (injury, death, prosecution, etc) to get their message heard. Sure, you can draw some parallel between disruptive protesters and violent extremists or terrorists (again, like someone always does), but that is stupid because no one qualitatively considers all causes, disruption, or forms of breaking the law equivalent, otherwise breaking all laws would result in the same penalty.

Now, when you're done prosecuting the protesters, hopefully you'll go back to strongly advocating for police reform, unless you were cool with their random killing of people, in which case, you can just go back to school or work, safe in the knowledge that emergency services will now function on that very important bridge in Memphis that totally isn't old or badly in need of repair.

I don't think you're a mindless American. I think you made a mindless copout point that was poorly defined as something it's not.

I actually think in general you're a pretty smart guy, though you're pulling some impressive mental gymnastics on this topic.

But dropping that and focusing on the argument of civil disobedience. I can't say whether it's necessary to this extent or not. For one I don't live in the US and the standards aren't the same here. I've seen enough to know that the racial issues on this in the US are definitely a huge hot issue right now and the sooner it can be improved the better. I certainly would prefer to see demonstrations that don't potentially put peoples lives at risk, particularly ones who may have nothing to even do with the topic at hand. I have seen a lot of stuff from the group BLM that has done some incredibly pointless and stupid things, though whether that is reflected upon the groups ultimate ideals or whether it's just certain morons is arguable, though the ones who are being morons are sure doing a great job of making themselves be heard and losing a lot of public sympathy from others as a result.

I'm seriously so glad I don't live in the US. Things are far from perfect here but fuck would I want to be dealing with the BS our neighbors down south do.

Yes.

Damn white minorities ruining our countries!

Sure

Yes. Unfortunate.

Can't help but wonder what Fox news is going to do when their core demographic starts dying off from old age.