(02-14-2020 04:11 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 03:26 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-14-2020 02:24 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Where did I say you said one was okay? I'm very serious. You're accusing me of reading something in, and it's you who seems to be doing so.

https://csnbbs.com/thread-797972-post-16...id16672368

Quote:You keep seemimgly trying to defend why one action is okay and the other isn't. If it didn't happen, then it's not part of the conversation. If it did, then it's wrong. PETA members certainly have literally assaulted people wearing fur etc.

See the text above.

Words like 'seemingly' and 'if' have meaning. Yes, I think that you're going this way... and you've complained about me getting this impression, but done nothing to refute it other than say that you didn't literally say that. I klnow you didn't... if you had, I wouldn't use words like seemingly and if.

Quote:I've tried to explain why I view them as different enough to draw a distinction already, and I'll try again.

With CFA, people were protesting the specific company, and people can find alternatives to what that company provides in the market place. For abortions, people are not protesting a specific company with the "abortion industry," but rather the industry itself. There are no alternatives open in the marketplace for someone to go to, that the protesters would be happy with the customer using.

Because there is an alternative available for CFA (other places sell chicken sandwiches and the protesters would be fine with that), it makes sense to me to view this as a free market in action. Due to the lack of alternative for abortions, I would categorize it differently - which isn't saying that it isn't OK.

I'm speaking strictly of peaceful protests, and once you start crossing the line of be verbally/physically abusive, you cross the line for either issue. But I don't think peacefully protesting near/at a business is a denial of service.

I do think we're pretty much on the same page.

I completely understood this the first time you said it... I just disagree.

So whom is PETA protesting when they throw paint on people wearing fur? Whom can you buy animal skin from that they'd be okay with?

Adoption isn't an alternative to an abortion? It seems very much specifically the option that abortion protesters support... and just as you can get a different chicken sandwich, you can get a different medical procedure.

and yes, 'murder' to some is more important than being able to get their chicken sandwich of choice.

You're drawing distinctions that don't matter to those engaging in these protests. They (may) matter to YOU because you seem to support one (protesting a business) and not the other (protesting an industry, paraphrasing your words) ; but if you put yourself in the position of someone who doesn't support either, you will be able to justify your position, just as I have here. That's not my position above, but it's the position of those who think they're 'okay' in aggressively protesting (to the point of intimidation if not criminality) these events.

Yes, I think by positions we're not far apart... but I think you're missing the perspective from 'the other side'. Trust me that in your life, you will eventually find yourself on the wrong side of arguments that you once aggressively supported. This probably isn't it, but it will be because you didn't imagine that there would be a time when people thought very differently from how they do now. This is where the 'ok boomer' comment and attitude comes from. Many these days seem to be unconcerned with the idea that some day, they will be the 'out of touch' generation to a new group of priorities... and that laws will and must apply equally to everyone.

This reminds me of a discussion I was in a while ago regarding Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem protests. The view which everyone was expected to agree with is that his protests are good, and opposition to them is bad because it necessarily means opposition to protecting people from police brutality. I pointed out that one can reasonably believe that the National Anthem should never be used to call attention to one's pet cause, regardless of the merits of that cause; and that to someone who holds such a belief, the argument that "but this particular cause is a really good one" does not carry much weight. For this I was called sexist, racist, gas-lighting, and a few other things. I'm sure they would have thrown in "OK boomer" if it had been a thing at the time (even though most of the participants were older than me).

I made clear throughout that I was not arguing for or against Kaepernick's method of protest OR his underlying cause; I was simply pointing out that it is possible to have a completely content-neutral opposition to the method without opposing the underlying cause, and that responding to such opposition by re-iterating the underlying cause doesn't really work. To this day I don't know why this point was so hard to understand, or why stating it was considered so irredeemably offensive. But such are the times we live in.

To her credit, one individual who disagreed with me (and whom I had never met) took the time to talk with me by phone, and soon realized that we both support free speech and oppose police brutality. Since then we have seen each other at various professional events on quite friendly terms. So all in all, the end result was positive: without the disagreement we would not have had the phone call; and without the phone call, we might not have gotten to know each other. Quite a different experience from the way some others have acted in similar circumstances.