My rule of thumb is “are they yelling at the government for not doing stuff they are supposed to?” Yes. Ok then i support it. I’m right 9/10 times with the first impression.
Protesting is a valid form of active citizenship. A protest should be pressuring the government to do its job, or else it’s just a gathering. So yes, most of us especially Americans should agree that protesting is good regardless of if you agree with the people protesting or not.
But government isn’t able to do every single thing in its remit, so effective protest also sets government priorities amongst multiple valid things it could be doing. That means that a protest for something that is a job of government could be encouraging the government to do something less important. It could be encouraging the government to adopt measures that are harmful to the country even though they achieve something.
I consider it part of the government’s job to secure the country’s borders and prevent illegal immigration… but I think it’s pretty far down the list of priorities compared to other stuff. So protests against immigration, aimed at getting the government to reduce it, are dumb in my opinion. Yet it seems to me that your rule gives it the thumbs up because it’s “pressuring the government to do its job” and “a valid from of active citizenship.”
I suspect you don’t really want to see more anti-immigrant protests, so I think it’s more complicated than that.
My rule of thumb is “are they yelling at the government for not doing stuff they are supposed to?” Yes. Ok then i support it. I’m right 9/10 times with the first impression.
So every protest broadly aligned with your views is justified, basically? That’s exactly the rule of thumb I’m trying to avoid.
Protesting is a valid form of active citizenship. A protest should be pressuring the government to do its job, or else it’s just a gathering. So yes, most of us especially Americans should agree that protesting is good regardless of if you agree with the people protesting or not.
But government isn’t able to do every single thing in its remit, so effective protest also sets government priorities amongst multiple valid things it could be doing. That means that a protest for something that is a job of government could be encouraging the government to do something less important. It could be encouraging the government to adopt measures that are harmful to the country even though they achieve something.
I consider it part of the government’s job to secure the country’s borders and prevent illegal immigration… but I think it’s pretty far down the list of priorities compared to other stuff. So protests against immigration, aimed at getting the government to reduce it, are dumb in my opinion. Yet it seems to me that your rule gives it the thumbs up because it’s “pressuring the government to do its job” and “a valid from of active citizenship.”
I suspect you don’t really want to see more anti-immigrant protests, so I think it’s more complicated than that.