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Climate Change

Blocking a Highway Is Not a Legitimate or Effective Form of Protest

Climate protesters who blocked an interstate outside D.C. likely cost a man his parole.

Billy Binion | 7.6.2022 4:45 PM

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Images of a man who may have lost his parole because climate change protesters blocked interstate | News2Share
A man on parole begs with climate change activists to let him get to work as they block a highway in Maryland (News2Share)

A group of activists on Monday blocked a highway in Maryland, not far outside of Washington, D.C., to pressure President Joe Biden into declaring a "Climate Emergency." Unsurprisingly, they didn't manage to accomplish that. But they did manage to accomplish something else.

"One lane, I'm asking one lane," a man begged the protesters, who had stationed themselves in a row across I-495. "I'm going to jail for what you're doing."

That man, caught on video by T.J. Jones for the company News2Share, explained that he is on parole and would be re-incarcerated if he was late for work. The clip shows him growing increasingly desperate and confrontational; he was eventually arrested by Maryland State Troopers.

VIDEO THREAD: Yesterday, July 4, activists demanding Joe Biden declare a "Climate Emergency" blocked traffic on he beltway in Maryland, just outside DC.

One agitated driver got physical with them while saying that he's on parole and could return to prison if late for his job. pic.twitter.com/iWSqTlnlSW

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) July 5, 2022

So while we still have no official climate emergency, we do have a bystander who may have just lost his freedom for the foreseeable future because he was prohibited from getting to his job by people who were illegally blocking a public interstate. 

Parolees are subject to all kinds of ridiculous minutiae that threaten to turn them back into criminals for minor infractions. They're often prohibited from drinking any alcohol, for example, and indeed risk being thrown back in prison for breaking rules they didn't know were rules. It's patently unfair that they may be returned to prison due to circumstances beyond their control. These government restrictions and inane consequences are worth protesting, but as with climate change, they cannot be improved by inconveniencing or endangering the people who experience them.

Such is par for the course with highway protests, which turn drivers into hostages. That isn't limited to the parolee—who, I'll add, is the type of person those on the left would usually fight for when the circumstances are more convenient. It also includes people experiencing medical and family emergencies and those in labor. In this case, one wonders how many hearts and minds came around on climate change as activists likely sent a man back to prison for the sake of a protest that didn't move the needle one iota politically. I'd venture very few.

The typical reply is that protests aren't meant to be convenient. That's true. And the father of civil disobedience—Martin Luther King, Jr.—did it too, right?

Except no, not really. Though King did lead a protest from Selma to Montgomery, famously filling the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it was a march. It did not block interstate and highway traffic indefinitely for the sake of it—a tactic King was not comfortable with, despite pressure in the 1960s to get on board. "Even though King didn't come out and criticize it in public, in private he thought it was a misguided tactic," said Brandon Terry, assistant professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies at Harvard University. "The NAACP thought it was ridiculous." King reportedly posited that such a move pushed the boundaries of acceptable demonstrations and would come back to bite the movement politically.

It's not difficult to see why he believed that. Take the activists this week who ostensibly flipped the bird to climate change. In reality, they increased emissions as cars idled on the roadway and possibly cost a man his freedom. Effective protesting, as King understood, has to do more than grab attention. It has to persuade.

Which is why he focused on civil disobedience—something these highway protests decidedly are not. To civilly disobey is to break an unjust law or rule and show the world the foolhardiness of having it enforced. Few serious people would argue that it should be legal to impede public roads. And that's not what these protests are out to prove, anyway.

Blocking highways is dangerous no matter the target of the protester's ire. Canadian truckers recently used the same tactic to push back on vaccine mandates, creating a traffic bottleneck on the busiest international crossing on the continent and cutting off some people from their livelihoods. Whether you're protesting COVID dictates from the government, climate change, or the issue du jour, consider that your demonstration will not win hearts and minds if it's hurting people.

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NEXT: Biden Blames Math, Reading Losses on the Pandemic—When He Should Blame COVID-19 Restrictions

Billy Binion is a reporter at Reason.

Climate ChangeProtestsActivismWashingtonCriminal JusticeMarylandPrisonsJail
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  1. JimboJr   3 years ago

    I think you peacefully get out, and ask them to please move. If they dont, pepper spray each one of them until they move. Sorry, I had an emergency I needed to get to and you were blocking me.

    That would be the most humane way to deal with these parasites

    1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   3 years ago

      Involuntary restraint is a violation of the NAP and the law. It is not peaceful and it is not non-violent. We have the right to defend ourselves against it with force.

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    2. Bubba Jones   3 years ago

      In the states that allow running over the protestors, do they allow a pepper spray alternative?

      1. JimboJr   3 years ago

        My instinct is that if you sit down on a highway purposefully restricting others free movement, you deserve to be run over.

        But when I check myself, I know I would have a very hard time actually doing that unless I thought my family or myself was in danger.

        But I would have no problem pepper spraying these pieces of shit. And if they were feelin frisky after that, well, that is going to be their problem

        1. Overt   3 years ago

          The purpose of these jackholes is to create exactly the publicity stunt they got from this parolee. You pepper spraying the lot of them would be exactly what they want. It would be perfectly edited and crafted to highlight your aggression against these poor protestors, and in addition to Maryland's DA prosecuting you for assault, your transgressions would be condemned by Reason's intern tomorrow night.

          1. Earth-based Human Skeptic   3 years ago

            Well then, let's pepper spray the fucking intern now.

            I am really getting tired of pandering to whiny bitches, and some misguided ethic that we have to be nice to everyone. I am fully committed to mutual respect, provided we all act within established--and freedom oriented--boundaries. But I am also ready to knock some heads for those that demand we conform to their totalitarian ideology.

            A small tactical nuke on Evergreen College might send a message.

            1. Overt   3 years ago

              I'm not making a moral case against pepper spraying. I am pointing out that between the complicit media and the conspiring Soros DA's you are going to not make any difference in hearts and minds, and will likely end up with a conviction on your record for the trouble.

              1. Nardz   3 years ago

                Then take direct action on the complicit media.
                Then the Soros DAs.

            2. JimboJr   3 years ago

              "A small tactical nuke on Evergreen College might send a message.'"

              That would be doing a service to humanity

              1. Set Us Up The Chipper   3 years ago

                Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

          2. jimc5499   3 years ago

            Exactly. People forget that most of the time the Police are there to protect the PROTESTERS. They work for the Liberal Socialist politicians who support these protests.
            Why do you think that you don't see these happen in areas with Conservative or Republican politicians in charge?

          3. Azathoth!!   3 years ago

            The purpose of these jackholes is to create exactly the publicity stunt they got from this parolee. You pepper spraying the lot of them would be exactly what they want.

            They get what they want regardless.

            At least if I pepper spray they get out of my way and I got to make them pay.

            If enough of us did this they'd stop.

      2. JimboJr   3 years ago

        I guess the other option...

        If you are a car in the front, loudly declare "I am having a medical emergency and need to leave" and then just start inching forward.

        The person has been warned, you have given them every option to leave, and progressed forward in such a way that they had plenty of time to leave if they wanted. At that point, they are doing you harm by preventing you from getting care, and have made their own decision.

        It would only take one person getting slowly crunched for that to dispand

    3. Travis R   3 years ago

      Surely you missed much about Dr King.
      He stated more than once that without violence no change was possible.
      The riots were part and parcel of HIS intentions.

  2. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   3 years ago

    It is far more diabolical than you suggest, Binyon. People cannot just abandon their cars in the middle of the road and walk away. These freeway blocking protesters are guilty of involuntary restraint and should be arrested and tried for that NAP violating crime.

    It is no different than if they walked into that guy's house and tied him to a fucking chair so that he was late for work.

    1. Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf   3 years ago

      They think fossil fuels are an existential threat; by their own rights, they are guilty of crimes against humanity and should be punished accordingly. Say, stuck in solitary and forced to listen to Dear Greta, interrupted only by UN speeches and the IPCC live broadcasts.

    2. Nardz   3 years ago

      If someone got out of their car and executed each one, put me on the jury and I'm voting for acquittal.

      1. Nachtwaechter Staater   3 years ago

        ^^^THIS.

      2. Spiritus Mundi   3 years ago

        Wouldn't take my chances with a DC jury pool. Lying to congress to defame a Republican, I will take those odds.

      3. jimc5499   3 years ago

        I'm voting to pay him a bounty.

    3. Overt   3 years ago

      " These freeway blocking protesters are guilty of involuntary restraint and should be arrested and tried for that NAP violating crime."

      Isn't that essentially the same as taking them hostage? Which...is exactly what Binion said they were doing?

      1. Ewald Von Kleist   3 years ago

        he didn't write that with sufficient vitriol

      2. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   3 years ago

        He seems to have left out the part where they should be charged with that felony crime instead of disturbing the peace or whatever other misdemeanor they might eventually get dismissed.

  3. Adans smith   3 years ago

    The wrong person was arrested.

    1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   3 years ago

      Thing's we used to know that we claim to have forgotten.

      They were able to put one person in cuffs and remove him from the scene, but unable to do that to a group of other people who were breaking the law.

  4. OpenBordersLiberal-tarian   3 years ago

    "he is on parole and would be re-incarcerated if he was late for work"

    Wow! It's Reason.com benefactor Charles Koch's second favorite type of employee — people with criminal records! 🙂

    #EmptyThePrisons
    #CheapLaborAboveAll

    1. OpenBordersLiberal-tarian   3 years ago

      PS — Obviously Mr. Koch's #1 favorite employee is someone born outside the US. Preferably Mexico.

      #OpenBorders

  5. Impeccable Compliance Environmental Yeoman (ICEY)   3 years ago

    We need common sense protest control legislation!

  6. skunkman   3 years ago

    Excellent article. One of the best Reason pieces for some time. The real truth is that this wasn't a protest, it was terrorism light. Not everyone on the left in America has this attitude, but far too many simply hate the people of this Country. They want to abuse people. Nobody in their right mind thinks that this behavior will win someone to their point of view. Furthermore, they don't really care about the environment. If they really did, they would practice what they preach. They wouldn't support dramatized facts like "we're all gonna die in 12 years" but they would support positive trends to improve how we treat the planet. They all suck.

  7. Brandybuck   3 years ago

    Protests are not for the purpose of effecting change, protests are for the purpose of making protestors feel like they're doing something.

    1. Set Us Up The Chipper   3 years ago

      So protesters == surgical masks?

      1. Harvey Mosley   3 years ago

        And TSA checkpoints.

  8. Bubba Jones   3 years ago

    Some states legalized running over the fuckers.

  9. Earth-based Human Skeptic   3 years ago

    So how about a citizen with a different climate perspective rolls some coal across the protestor line. That would be speech, too, right?

    1. Its_Not_Inevitable   3 years ago

      Do they light it on fire?

  10. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   3 years ago

    Now I want to see a 3000 word article on how a bunch of upper middle class, white climate protesters didn't give a shit about a parolees concerns and how that makes people vote for Trump.

  11. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   3 years ago

    Oh, and the Europeans seem to have much less tolerance for this shit.

    1. Unicorn Abattoir   3 years ago

      Only mistake they made was not grabbing their tire irons first.

  12. R Mac   3 years ago

    How many times did “protestors” block traffic in 2020?

    1. Overt   3 years ago

      Hell, I seem to remember a post on this site attempting a hagiography for a dude in Austin who tried running up to a car in the street with his rifle and getting shot for the effort.

      Imagine that. Taking over a street in Austin. Then running up to a car with your rifle in the low ready position and getting shot. Was Reason here explaining how that was not productive? No, I seem to recall that they wanted to blame the driver of the car.

      1. Spiritus Mundi   3 years ago

        Reason 'editors' don't live in Austin. Binion is clearly mad his (?) commute home was delayed.

      2. Stuck in California   3 years ago

        I'm decidedly against shooting protestors. Like I should have to say that. But if you point a gun at me you had better be ready to lose your life.

        It is always my very last resort to fight, but if I have to fight it means we're going to war. If I'm afraid for my life, I will do whatever it takes to remove that threat. And I don't mean that as a a bold or bragging statement, am genuinely not a fighter. I mean I get really scared and I will use any weapon or advantage I have and if I'm that frightened I'm likely fuck people up something fierce before I'm sure they're no longer a threat.

        And if he has a gun... I am thoroughly of the " better to be tried by twelve rather than carried by 6" school here.

        That said, I don't know the whole story. I just can see exactly how it happens when you see a weapon in the middle of an angry mob.

        1. Stuck in California   3 years ago

          Oh holy shit:

          The dead man has been identified as Garrett Foster. A site called newsbreak.com reports that Foster was seen earlier in the evening on video saying, “the ‘people who hate us’ are ‘too big of p-ssies to actually do anything about it’ when asked why he was carrying a rifle.”

          yeah... someone lived a sheltered existence.

          1. Overt   3 years ago

            Yes, FWIW, this is the article Reason did:
            https://reason.com/2020/07/27/the-libertarian-party-mourns-garrett-foster-activist-killed-at-a-black-lives-matter-protest/?comments=true#comments

      3. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   3 years ago

        Daniel Perry is the ex-army Sergeant who shot Reason's buddy Garrett Foster. To be clear, there were 4 shots taken at Perry's vehicle with pistols after he shot Foster for drawing down on him with his AR-15. That would suggest to me that his claim of self defense has a lot of validity.

        The DA waited 11 months for the furor to die down and for people to forget how bad the protests were and then charged Perry with murder. The police detective that investigated the incident accused the DA of criminal behavior in the DA's failure to present all the evidence he had collected to the grand jury. Another year has passed and Perry has still not had his day in court.

        1. BillyG   3 years ago

          Witness #1 for the defense. The detective who investigated the case.

  13. Union of Concerned Socks   3 years ago

    Some of these people need to be mostly-peacefully demonstrated against.

  14. emkcams   3 years ago

    For those familiar with the star trek entertainment franchise, there is a common theme expressed as "the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few". This theme is common in much activism and is present in this incident even though it is not explicitly spoken. And while the notion sounds great, the equally important second part is always missing (as it is in star trek): "as long as the few agree". If "the few" don't agree, and they usually don't, as is clear in this case, then the perpetrators are committing an act of violence.

    1. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland   3 years ago

      Until search for spock whe kirk rebuts wit the needs of the one

    2. JeremyR   3 years ago

      Strange New Worlds a few weeks ago had the opposite - some planet was sacrificing children to a machine that kept their planet terraformed and Pike was really, really, really pissed about it.

  15. Unicorn Abattoir   3 years ago

    Cops would have done better getting in touch with his parole officer and smoothing things over.

    1. markm23   3 years ago

      Responding reasonably is against department policy.

  16. RC   3 years ago

    Legitimate? Yes.
    Effective? No.

    Blocking a highway is certainly a legitimate form of protest, but it's really only effective at pissing people off. I've often wondered if the goal of this type of protest is to make someone mad enough to run over them, so it'll make more headlines...like the protesters during the Vietnam war who lit themselves on fire to protest the war.

    1. tracerv   3 years ago

      Please explain how this type of protest is legitimate. I am confused.

      1. RC   3 years ago

        Protest: an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid
        https://www.dictionary.com/browse/protest

        I would say that blocking a highway in protest of climate change policies certainly meets the definition of a protest. It's just a stupid and ineffective method of protesting.

        Heck, the author of the article makes a pretty good case for the ineffectiveness of this form of protest, and goes to some lengths to explain why Martin Luther King, Jr. favored other forms of protest because they were more effective, but he doesn't make a case for why they aren't legitimate.

        1. tracerv   3 years ago

          le·git·i·mate
          conforming to the law or to rules.

          Once again, how is blocking a highway conforming to the laws or to rules?

        2. Earth-based Human Skeptic   3 years ago

          How about putting an electric fence around the commune where these assholes live? Just blocking their normal movements to make a protest, right?

    2. JeremyR   3 years ago

      If you block a highway or road, you are effectively preventing other people from moving freely

      Which prevents people from going to work, which could cost people jobs or in that one case, send a parolee back to jail.

      These people should be arrested for illegal restraint and be sued for damages

    3. Harvey Mosley   3 years ago

      Uh, no. Blocking a roadway is not a legitimate protest. It's an act of possibly deadly violence. Google "Reginald Denny". That's what goes through my mind when I see roads blocked by protesters. Thankfully I've never experienced it in person. But if I ever do I will not sit helpless while I'm surrounded by a mob of violent thugs.

  17. Stuck in California   3 years ago

    who, I'll add, is the type of person those on the left would usually fight for when the circumstances are more convenient.

    Since fucking when?

    Democrats have historically been all about the tough on crime, mandatory sentencing shit, when it's politically convenient. And the asshats who block the freeway don't give a shit about anybody but themselves. They're one-issue idiots or people who just love the spectacle and the camaraderie. The former give not shits about anyone, the latter I just call Socialist Butterflies.

    1. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland   3 years ago

      Next you will tell me the crack sentanci g disparity is due to the congressional black caucus

      1. Stuck in California   3 years ago

        Sorry man.

        If you want to know why so many people don't trust the legacy media, all you have to do is look at how they try to gaslight us on the former positions of their political messiahs.

        I've bitched in the last week about everything from Harris being portrayed as a moderate to Hillary and Obama being anti gay marriage.

        Change of mind isn't bad. Especially when shit doesn't work. But just own it, don't make the media memory hole your bullshit.

  18. nobody 2   3 years ago

    I consider the parolee who got arrested's actions here as evidence he should be released from his parole. He could just as easily have decided that if was going back to jail anyway, it might as well be for attempted murder.

    1. JeremyR   3 years ago

      He got arrested because he got angry and tried to move them out of the way.

      Somehow that's an arresting offense, but blocking the road isn't

      1. MaxBlancke   3 years ago

        It is not the action itself that brings arrest, it is the political viewpoint of those committing the action.

  19. justme   3 years ago

    99.99% of the time protestors only accomplish looking like fools, idiots and morons. they accomplish nothing of value.

  20. JeremyR   3 years ago

    So the police arrest the guy who needs to go to work to avoid jail...

    This is absolutely maddening.

  21. Overt   3 years ago

    This article is actually quite interesting. Binion kind of glosses over the fact that this guy got physical with the protestors. The parolee lost his cool and as a result was arrested, and will probably lose his parole.

    Notice how Binion does anything in his power to avoid talking about the actual event that got this dude arrested. Contrast that with yesterday's article where LAPD were vilified for trying to get people off of a highway where they were protesting. The act of removing these people ended up in lil' Steph Tanner from Full House getting pushed to the ground. Was Reason's Intern lecturing us about the problems with shutting down highways? No? Why is that?

    I am not expecting consistency from staff. But I am expecting them to draw some basic principles here. And the fact that Binion is making the exact OPPOSITE argument to a position argued last night should at least be a point for him to bring up and discuss.

    1. Overt   3 years ago

      Further interesting is the Freedom Convoy drivers.

      They were blocking off highways between Canada and the US. While I am pretty sure the Reason staff preferred to just kind of ignore them, we also did not see anyone saying that blocking traffic is illegitimate.

      How is blocking a highway different than, say, blocking off all of downtown and preventing people from getting to file permits with the Ottawa government?

      How is blocking a highway different than laying siege to a federal courthouse and trying to burn it down, denying people their right to a speedy trial?

      How is blocking a highway different than occupying a public park for months in an Occupy Wallstreet protest?

      This is the sort of issue that requires a principled approach, and Binion instead just declares his position, without reasoning about the moral principles involved. To be sure, I think we can all agree that pragmatically, it is problematic to do this shit....but is that it? If so, why are they saying blocking a highway is NOT LEGITIMATE. That seems to be making a moral statement.

      1. Harvey Mosley   3 years ago

        It isn't different. It was just a case of what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

    2. Nardz   3 years ago

      "But I am expecting them to draw some basic principles here."

      Why?
      They haven't demonstrated this to be a reasonable expectation of them at all.

  22. Cal Cetín   3 years ago

    Another difference with Martin Luther King is that he was protesting against the *illegal disenfranchisement* of the people he was defending.

    Black people in (say) Alabama were kept from voting because they were black, even though a specific provision of the Constitution unambiguously made this illegal.

    They were literally disenfranchised. Not disenfranchised in the sense of "waah, I didn't get my way." Disenfranchised in the sense of having the legal right to vote but getting denied that right.

    Some stretching of the law is understandable when the polls are closed to you, not metaphorically but literally.

    The current situation is really not comparable.

    1. Overt   3 years ago

      While I agree that there is the difference you say, it really mustn't matter. Either you have the right to protest or you don't. You have the right to shut down highways or you don't. If we start permitting behavior for some but not others merely on their intentions, we get some really bad outcomes.

      1. Earth-based Human Skeptic   3 years ago

        On one end of the spectrum, we have actual speech, i.e. words spoken or written. And we have almost limitless freedom, guaranteed by law, to that form of speech. At the other end of the spectrum, we have actions that might be expressive, but they directly impinge on fundamental rights of others. And, in the case of things like occupying public and private property, are often expressly against the law. I would guess that includes sitting on most highways.

        So protest legally, or protest by harming others and/or breaking the law. But then risk yourself in court.

        1. Overt   3 years ago

          The problem is that protest theatre has become an art. You cannot look at the Abortion Protest article from last night and not come to the conclusion that all of these protests are about creating marketing opportunities for protestors (and their cause) with the least possible cost to them.

          Civil Rights protestors engaged in civil disobedience, knowing that they would be thrown in jail. This is the purpose of civil disobedience, paying the cost of your "crime" in time served, to show just how unjust the punishment is.

          But these protestors want the sizzle, without paying for the steak. They want to disobey, and create a highly edited video. They don't want to go to jail. They want to get tossed to the ground so they can get a million retweets. Their ability to manufacture "punishment" through optics has created an incentive NOT to engage in civil disobedience.

          1. Cal Cetín   3 years ago

            My argument is *if* the civil rights demonstrators broke some laws (though lots of it was constitutionally protected whatever the Southern authorities said), it was in circumstances no longer applicable (outside the fever swamps of paranoia) - a massive population of the illegally disenfranchised.

            But maybe I'm proving too much, because voting is still rigged against third parties, and I wouldn't want to cite this as justification for generic lawbreaking.

      2. Nardz   3 years ago

        We're already there, overt.
        It's a fucking war.

  23. NoVaNick   3 years ago

    I would have gotten out of my car and kicked the first trustafarian I saw as hard as I could in the nuts.

    1. Earth-based Human Skeptic   3 years ago

      Lady nutz?

      1. NoVaNick   3 years ago

        Trying not to be sexist here

  24. Karidian2246   3 years ago

    Do 2 points of a 3 point turn, pit your exhaust pipe in its (generic pronoun to not offend) face, put the car in Park and rev the engine until it passes out or moves.

    1. Longtobefree   3 years ago

      The cops who can't arrest the terrorists would ticket you for going the wrong and asset forfeiture your car and wallet.

  25. Longtobefree   3 years ago

    Bull Connor would have cleared that highway in five minutes.
    Water cannon to knock 'em down, the dogs to keep 'em down till the cuffs are on.
    Book the whole gang on conspiracy to kidnap.

  26. NoVaNick   3 years ago

    Or you could tell them your kid is having gender affirming surgery. That would clear them from the highway

  27. Cyto   3 years ago

    You really buried the most important fact. A couple of people tiptoed around it, but let's jump all the way in:

    The police were there. These people were illegally on a controlled access road.

    Yet they did nothing to stop them.

    If you or I were in the middle of a controlled access highway, it would be a race to see if we got killed by traffic before we were hauled away. "Police stop traffic and stand there protecting us until we decide to leave" would not be on the menu.

    Yet they indeed were capable of making arrests. They arrested the guy who was complaining that his path was being blocked... an illegal act, likely a criminal assault or perhaps even kidnapping or false imprisonment, depending on local laws and how zealous a prosecutor wanted to get. Yet they hauled off the victim.

    So the question is... who ordered that? What exactly did they order? Why? Assuming it did not originate with the police chief, why did he comply with this order? This was an inherently dangerous situation.... people arriving at the back of the traffic were in very real danger. Stopping on a highway is no joking matter.

    So where is reason? Are we hounding these players for answer? Or are we just going to accept published news reports and copy that? Because there is a story here. All we need is a real reporter to go and uncover it.

    1. NoVaNick   3 years ago

      Two possibilities:
      1. The cops knew that these protesters will make progs/democrats look bad and the longer people are stuck in traffic, the more likely they will vote against them.

      2. The protesters were actually paid by Big Oil or the Koch brothers to make environmentalists look bad.

      Or maybe they really just were retarded progs.

      1. jimc5499   3 years ago

        How about a third option. The Police were there to protect the protesters. Their Liberal Socialist Politician bosses ordered them to NOT arrest the protesters, but, TO arrest anybody who interfered with them.

        1. NoVaNick   3 years ago

          I was being sarcastic, but probably what progs are thinking. Seriously though, who would do this stupid shit as a protest? It’s not going to win anyone over to your cause and will much more have the opposite effect. Since it’s illegal for pedestrians to go on highways, it’s strange that the police didn’t arrest any of them.

          1. Nardz   3 years ago

            They don't give a shit about winning people over.
            They're in the demonstrating power and making a spectacle of imposing their will phase of totalitarian transition.

    2. Overt   3 years ago

      The reason is that the parolee victim lost his cool and started getting physical with the protestors, and so was hauled off for that violence. Exactly as these protestors expected.

  28. Hattori Hanzo   3 years ago

    Early 90's Biden would have called for the death penalty for these hippies and the bragged he hated hippies more than GOP.

  29. adhokrudnum   3 years ago

    If you are blocking a roadway as a form of protest you deserve to and should be maced. It also means that your skills at persuasion are pretty shaky at best and, by extension, your cause is also perceived as shaky.

  30. Slocum   3 years ago

    These stunts should result in felony charges. Period. People sometimes die in rear-end crashes caused by traffic accidents. Remember this woman who block a highway in Canada? People also may die when their ambulance is caught on a closed highway. For everybody else, they are being illegally detained by the protesters who've blocked them on a limited access highway with no ability to escape. When you steal something worth more than $1000, you've committed grand theft. These jerks are stealing tens of thousands of dollars of people's valuable time.

  31. PeteRR   3 years ago

    Everybody carry handcuffs in their car. When these morons appear, drag them to the shoulder and cuff them to the guardrails.

    And...and pour superglue into the keyholes.

  32. Illocust   3 years ago

    The thing about Civil Disobedience is that you have to have obviously oppressive laws to Civilly Disobey. Sitting en mass in front of City Hall smoking weed would be Civil Disobedience against the illegalization of Marijuana. But most left leaning causes today are towards oppressing others, which doesn't offer opportunities to civilly disobey.

    1. Nardz   3 years ago

      ^

  33. Set Us Up The Chipper   3 years ago

    Especially since we know that the unvalidated climate models run hot.

    “We tested the ability of climate models to reproduce what the real world has already experienced using a variable – the bulk atmospheric temperature – that is a basic metric of the climate system,” Dr. Christy says. “All models heated up the atmosphere much faster on average than did Mother Nature over the past 40-plus years.”

    He says that the models, which are simply theoretical hypotheses that need testing, failed a significant test of their ability to represent the way the real world works.

    “This tells us we shouldn’t have much confidence in their forecasts, since they weren’t able to characterize the past 40 years correctly,” Dr. Christy says.

    https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020EA001281

    1. mtrueman   3 years ago

      "Especially since we know that the unvalidated climate models run hot."

      They're models. Science is not about models, it's about observing and measuring the world around us. Temperatures in this case.

      1. Azathoth!!   3 years ago

        They're models. Science is not about models, it's about observing and measuring the world around us. Temperatures in this case.

        Yes. The models work by feeding current temperatures through the premises of the model and providing a scenario of future climate.

        Therefore, using known data, the model, if it worked correctly, should have been able to, with near full accuracy, recreate the climate scenario of the past forty years.

        But it couldn't. It ran 'hot'. This means that there is something IN the model that is causing this--AND it means that the current predictions will be hot as well.

        However, if one just went by global temps, without models, I believe that currently we're in a slight decline. Climate researchers rarely use current temps as input. Because they don't show what climate research funding groups want to see.

        1. mtrueman   3 years ago

          "Therefore, using known data, the model, if it worked correctly, should have been able to, with near full accuracy, recreate the climate scenario of the past forty years."

          You're joking, right? We can't even accurately predict tomorrow's weather. You expect models to predict the climate 40 years hence with greater accuracy?

          "However, if one just went by global temps, without models"

          How do you propose to measure temperature without models? Typical thermometers model temperature via the expansion of mercury, with varying degrees of accuracy.

          1. PeteRR   3 years ago

            The predictions made in 1990, 2000, 2010 didn't pan out in reality. They always shot higher than the actual recorded temps. What makes you think the current models will do any better?

            1. mtrueman   3 years ago

              I think the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans was not fully appreciated until very recently. It's only since the advent of satellites that we can measure the surface temperature of oceans on a wide scale. And only very recently have deeper layers of the ocean have been comprehensively measured, temperature wise. Do your own research if you feel it necessary.

  34. mtrueman   3 years ago

    Blockading roads is more of a form of direct action than a demonstration or protest.

    Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to others (e.g. authorities), by, for example, revealing an existing problem, using physical violence, highlighting an alternative, or demonstrating a possible solution.

    Disrupting traffic may be an appropriate way to tackle climate change given that a large portion of the CO2 emissions come from transport. As the article makes clear, it's less appropriate as a means to pressure the president into declaring a climate emergency.

  35. Naime Bond   3 years ago

    Why not extend the 'designated' driver protocol and let them clear the road, '....by any means necessary...' and give them full immunity for any damage that results?

  36. Naime Bond   3 years ago

    '...That man, caught on video by T.J....' has my sympathy but how hard did he try to find and explain his situation to a good samaritan with a cell phone to call his destination and try to explain things? Or call his parole office and explain? Had those efforts failed, then he should not be punished.

    1. jimc5499   3 years ago

      How about the fact that he shouldn't have had to do that in the first place? I could see it in the event of an accident, but, not this. This isn't on him, it's on the assholes who were blocking the road.

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