I take your point, but I think the major point of contention is that there is no consistent standard to which protests are held. A protest from the left can do just about whatever they damn well please with relatively minimal long-term consequences for a small fraction of the protesters. A protest on the right sees maximal consequences for as many protesters as can be located through an incredible expenditure in resources to identify and locate every possible violator. Plus, demonstrators on the right tend to do so in good faith with their faces uncovered and cell phones on, whereas demonstrators on the left often go into the protest presuming they will be taking part in criminal behavior and take steps to conceal their identity and practice basic opsec.
It may be that those who are calling for a blanket response are seeking any sort of equal standard.
Sure, I agree there should be an equal standard. I think that standard needs to be closer to the "let non-violent protests happen" than the "decades in jail for trespassing"
I'd also note that having a standard of behavior for protests or limit on what can be done during a legal protest is not the same thing as prohibiting protests across the board. Just because a theoretical law says a protest can't arbitrarily block traffic, loot a Target, or burn down a federal building doesn't mean that protests are prohibited or that it is going to lead to silent prayer being prohibited. Also, many protests make a point to be transgressive, so wherever you draw the line it will be crossed.
In theory you are correct, but the posters I was answering here repeatedly used the law, and legal standard as the line for what protests should not be allowed. If you allow the government to remove a form of protest by passing a law, they will quickly remove nay effective redress of grievances. That is pretty universal throughout history, and the reason that we the Founding Fathers felt the need to put the redress of grievances as protected in the 1A.
I don't think that's true. Most things that have seen significant political change have done so without disruptive protests. The idea behind protests tends to be to change things RFN.
I don't think that's true at all. The VAST majority of major political change in the world took either a disruptive protest, or outright violence. Just in the US, Women's suffrage, temperance, The Civil Rights movement, abolition of slavery, ending wars, the whiskey rebellion, legality of abortion (both directions), the list goes on and on. Either disruptive protests to make the Normies sit up and take notice, or outright violence. Restoring Gun rights are about the only change that didn't, although I bet a bunch of leftists would call those open carry protests from the 2010's "disruptive".
That protest wasn't legal, and ended up in a civil war. If it comes to the necessity of kicking off a civil war, the laws relating to the legality of blocking traffic during a protest will be the least of your concerns.
That's my point. That protest wasn't legal, but it was still a valid protest, and the Crown had another 2 years after that where they could have responded to the grievances of the colonists and averted war. They didn't, but they could have because the colonists used illegal protests for quite some time. I could have just as easily used the protests outside the Boston Customs House in 1770 as an example. There are plenty of protests that are illegal in the time and place they are held, which are righteous and should not be slapped down with a blanket "It's against the law and interferes with other people, so should be stopped."
And my other point is, because of that historical fact, and the predisposition of governments and their agents to think they are always right up to and past when they are shooting protesters, we should be very careful about impeding
non-violent but illegal political protests. If they damage private property hold them accountable for that (like the morons that glued themselves to VW's tent a couple years ago).
The corollary to that, is we should have a bit of leniency for regular folks that are faced with illegal acts. Those videos of the truck drivers dragging people off the roads in Europe are probably technically committing assault, but should not be charged, as long as they didn't permanently injure someone. Running a car through people just sitting there or shooting them is over the line though.
