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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
So someone explain to me, if you support the rights of people to protest against powerful systems and entities, how this protest falls outside of the realm of what's expected during a protest without resorting to your opinion on the views of the organization involved or Lucifer's inconvenience. Both of which should be completely irrelevant to you being that your true objection is to the breaking of laws and the disruption of trade.
Can anyone do that for me?
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Maybe this is the crux of it - I
don't support anyone's right to break the law simply because they think of their action as protest.
On the other hand, I support people's right to choose the consequences of their actions - if breaking the law and getting attention accomplishes a greater good, power to them. I guess I just don't see the blanket term "protest" as being a very convincing justification for breaking the law and trespassing on the rights/property of others. These things have to be weighed individually. Not only that, but the entire point of it is that we, as individuals, have to come to terms with which side occupies the moral highground in each case. Protest is a way of forcing the evaluation.
As far as this specific action and the wording floating around the thread, Greenpeace's action was legitimate, illegal, and, in my opinion non-violent but not peaceful. They intended to do economic harm to Lucifer's company. Having the intent to do harm is pretty much the antithesis of peaceful. It's also the accepted and accustomed mode of protest. However peaceful and non-violent are two different terms that, used accurately, denote different things. I'm just trying to be deliberate and precise in my use of terminology.