Protests and Riots in Downtown Seattle

Throughout the afternoon, I’ve heard reports of vandalism, protests, and riots in downtown Seattle.  While I’m not in the least bit surprised, given that people around here like to piss and moan about their lot in life much more than they like to actually do anything about it, I am a little disappointed that, once again, a group of people who come together to protest are invaded by ass-clowns who turn out to be destructive, ignorant crap-weasels. 

I don’t know how many people there were protesting whatever the “not fair” of the week item is, and quite frankly I don’t care, but the reports I saw said that there were roughly 50 people involved in smashing some store fronts, spray painting an anarchy symbol on a Porsche (guess that guy had it coming for being successful) and broke some windows out of the Federal Courthouse, causing it to close early today.  I’m quite certain that the majority of people, as usual, were peacefully protesting something that they strongly believe in, and though I may not support whatever issue they were protesting, I certainly support their right to do so.  Now, because of a few dozen a-holes in the crowd, the leading story on the news tonight will be about the damage.  Whatever message they were trying to convey will be lost.  And the a-holes have their moment of fame.

In all seriousness, I hate protests. The vast, vast majority of protests that I’ve seen are people complaining about something that was caused by government action, and demanding government action to fix it.  We desperately need the Feds to take a long walk off a short pier, but these people are demanding more and more regulations to fix some perceived problem, not even realizing that the problems they are protesting were caused by those folks in DC in the first place.  I support their right to be out there voicing their opinions 100%, even if I think the opinions they are voicing is mindless, ignorant, ill thought out drivel that they don’t understand in the least. 

Now we have a declared state of emergency in Seattle, with the police ordered to confiscate any weapons being carried (legally or otherwise – not sure where the Mayor gets this power, but it’s defined in the city code – I suspect the city code is illegal at the state level, but hasn’t yet been challenged) and the peaceful protest for <insert cause here> has been destroyed. 

I have a suggestion for anyone going to a protest. No matter what you’re protesting, or how peaceful you plan for it to be.  Carry pepper-spray.  When some jackasses get out of control, hose them and call the police yourselves.  Then the news would report about your peaceful protest, and how when a few people started to get out of control, the rest of the group quickly put an end to their destructive antics and called the authorities to take care of it. 

Boy, what a better message that would be to send to the nation.  Instead of “we’re a bunch of self-righteous SOB’s who can do what we want” people will see “we disagree with policy, but will vehemently defend the rights of others and strictly enforce legal and ethical adherence within our group, even while demonstrating against something”.