07-09-2016, 01:23 PM
(07-09-2016, 12:17 PM)cannongal Wrote: What you may consider a minor irritant or inconvenience is a big deal to some.
In January of 2015, people that said they represented the BLM movement, chained themselves to barrels of cement, and effectively shut down I 93 in Boston and jammed up traffic in surrounding towns for a good portion of the day.
During that day very few people could get in or out of Boston. Dr's appointments were missed, VA appointments were missed (but hey, what's another 3 month wait, right?) . Scheduled surgeries had to be postponed, and 4 ambulances had to be diverted to other (maybe even less equipped to handle the emergency) hospitals. I think a baby was born in that traffic jam, too.
There was a lot of anger towards BLM that day. It showed up in my facebook feed for days. Just because you can be rational in times of stress, doesn't mean everyone can.
It's possible that I have a higher tolerance for inconvenience than most. But, I and millions of others, including veterans, have been stuck in traffic for hours and missed appointments due to the intentional and unintentional idiocy of others on many occasions.
And, streets and highways here get closed for parades and demonstrations that don't mean much to me a few times a year. Sometimes those parades and protests spill outside sanctioned areas and block open routes until they get pushed backed, like what's happened at a couple of the recent protests across the country.
While occasionally getting jammed up for hours on the road for any reason is effin' irritating and inconvenient at the time, I have not observed it causing a cycle of societal anger and violence. Traffic sucks, we bitch about it, we get over it, and we carry on -- no matter what/who caused the jam. I guess we just have different perspectives, cannongal.
As for the few specific protesters who chained themselves to cement barrels on the I 93 a year and a half ago, I share your perspective -- they were idiots and their actions went way beyond causing incidental inconvenience. Their actions were illegal and posed a risk to public safety. I was glad they were removed within two and a half hours and that they were arrested and charged, just like the idiots who disrupt sanctioned peaceful protests by throwing things at police or engaging in other illegal activity.