FYI: I looked up what actually happened in that incident.
- protestors let the car ahead of him through (they later said that that driver had told them that she needed to get through for an emergency).
- the driver of the truck tried to barge through when they let the car through.
- the crowd stopped the truck.
- the driver of the truck then placed his handgun on the dashboard and started threatening protesters.
- it was only then that protestors started throwing bottles.
- then, the driver drove his truck through the crowd.
Seems to me that everything was peaceful - inconvenient, but peaceful - until the truck driver escalated things with a threat of violence.
Pickup rolls through protesters gathered on Interstate 244; state troopers questioning driver
I would say there's some guilt on both sides here, although he was outnumbered and had legitimate cause to feel in fear of his life. Their lives did not depend upon them lingering on the interstate like that, so they could have easily withdrawn and gotten out of the way. But he was scared for his life and that of his children, and felt the need to get out of there as soon as possible.
It seems to me that using any kind of force or threat of force to prevent people from passing safely to their destination could be construed as violence, thus crossing the line into a non-peaceful demonstration. It's more than just "inconvenient." It is a violation of a citizen's right to travel.
Just don't block the roadway. How simple is that?
When someone is approaching a group of people on the road and deciding whether to brake or not, nobody would be banging on their car.
Also: you mentioned "potential weapons;" what about actual weapons? A lot of MAGA protests have had people openly carrying firearms.
Yeah, I've seen that. I don't recall if any of them blocked the road, though.
While I'm not an expert in Oklahoma law, in most places, that would be a traffic offense, not even a crime.
Perhaps not, although I've read about cases of jaywalking pedestrians being killed in traffic, oftentimes with no charges against the driver who hit them - because the pedestrian was in the wrong and the driver had no chance to stop.
How much delay to a driver do you think warrants killing the people causing the delay?
Well, we're talking about more than just a "delay." Sometimes, deadly force is warranted in cases of self-defense. The key point is that the protesters were initially in the wrong by being on the road in the first place. "Stand your ground" doesn't apply, because it wasn't their ground. The truck driver had the right of way, so it was essentially his ground more than it was the protesters. He had no other place he could go, no way to retreat, although the protesters
did have an easy avenue of retreat - by simply walking off the road.
What part of "just don't block the road" is unclear to you?
Technically, nobody needs to be on an interstate highway.
Well, I suppose we could always go back to using cowpaths, but interstate highways can be convenient.
It seems rather presumptuous to say for others what actions would help their cause or not.
I think I'm pretty well-informed and reasonably qualified to make observations of what people do to supposedly "send a message" in the form of protest. I'm informed enough to know what they were protesting against, and as an astute, lifelong observer of American politics, I've seen what works and what doesn't work. Call it "presumptuous" if you wish, but I think I have a far better handle on the issues at hand over those who presume to take me to task because they think they're more "woke" than I am.
It also seems irrelevant. The question of whether you consider a protest effective or inconvenient doesn't affect the person's right to protest.
It also doesn't affect a person's right to self-defense.
Did you see the quote from the article from that activist?
Mark Faulk, a longtime Oklahoma activist who was arrested last year for blocking a roadway, said dramatic tactics are necessary to get people’s attention.
“The idea of escalating it to the point where you disrupt the convenience of the citizens and of the status quo, you have to do that sometimes to make a point,” Faulk said.
This is the mentality we're talking about here. Even assuming the best of circumstances and assuming everyone is "peaceful" (regardless of how far one wants to stretch the definition of "peaceful"), what sort of "attention" is he talking about? What kind of "point" is being made? Is he assuming that everyone else is uninformed and that only he knows what's what? Talk about presumptuous.
I'm not saying that they don't have the right to protest. Of course they have the right, but it is a contact sport, you know. Sometimes people get hurt. To think that "that shouldn't happen" or "that can't happen" is dangerously naïve.
Do you remember back in the 80s when someone protesting nuclear weapons lied down on the railroad tracks to block a train carrying a missile? He got his legs run over by the train. An incredibly sad story, but it was so unnecessary and could have been avoided.
