I have made it clear with several posts, including this one, in June, and this one, in October, that I yield to no one in my contempt for the “screaming at the sky” “No Kings” demonstrations. From the June post:
We don’t have a king, and Donald Trump doesn’t act like one. If he did (or could), all the obstructionist, partisan judges we have seen over-reaching to block his legitimate policies would be in prison, without heads, or on the lam. The anti-democratic citizens (and illegals) demonstrating yesterday are not the supporters of our elected President and our system that elected him, but those who still refuse to accept that election (or his first one, for that matter).
Nevertheless, a lot of my good friends, formerly thoughtful, rational people, are either participating in the latest iteration of this…well, let me hand over the floor to Otter for a moment…
A futile and stupid gesture! But three of them (or is it four)? I have measured these protests against the Ethics Alarms Protest Ethics Checklist and found the “No Kings” tantrums to be 0 for 12:
1. Is this protest just and necessary?
2. Is the primary motive for the protest unclear, personal, selfish, too broad, or narrow?
3. Is the means of protest appropriate to the objective?
4. Is there a significant chance that it will achieve an ethical objective or contribute to doing so?
5. What will this protest cost, and who will have to pay the bill?
6. Will the individuals or organizations that are the targets of the protest also be the ones who will most powerfully feel its effects?
7. Will innocent people be adversely affected by this action? (If so, how many?)
8. Is there a significant possibility that anyone will be hurt or harmed? (if so, how seriously? How many people?)
9. Are the protesters prepared to take full responsibility for the consequences of the protest?
10. Would an objective person feel that the protest is fair, reasonable, and proportional to its goal?
11. What is the likelihood that the protest will be remembered as important, coherent, useful, effective and influential?
12. Could the same resources, energy and time be more productively used toward achieving the same goals, or better ones?
However, I am considering whether the checklist is missing a possible redeeming feature of not only these protests but other protests as well. There is the possible #13:
Ethics Alarms 
#4 Does any rational person give a flying F!
I received an invitation to particiapte in one from a now demented friend (she use to be sane). The invitation uses not tonly the word KING, but Nazi, Hitler, Fascist, fall of democracy, inmoral, pedophilic, draft dodger.
I pointed out that such vocabulary is inidicative of ad hominum, appeal to emotion, After poitning out that these are classical logic fallacies in philosophy. She responded these claims are not philosophical claims but real.
There is no help for these folks.
I could see adding this rule for certain narrow-issue groups, like PETA, for instance.
The problem with the No Kings crowd, I suspect there is significant overlap in the attendees at this rally and the “mostly peaceful rioters.”
-Jut
In other words – do the queries about costs or injury to others outweigh any benefit from #13
Number 13 is worth adding. Part of personal growth is changing one’s mind, developing nuance, etc.
Aristotle said, methinks, that “Excellence is a habit.” Doing anything is a habit, not simply an ability. Being generous, exercising patience, speaking a foreign language, etc.
Perhaps there are people who only know how to protest because they do it periodically. We could argue the case. Even if the particular protest seems ill-conceived.
Thanks for reading!
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: yes, we have the protests here, and no I’m not going. What to say to the people who go to such protests? It beats me.
P.P.S.: some people find their romantic interest or even their spouse-to-be at the protest. Everyone knows it’s a good opportunity to survey the dating pool.
What to say to the people who go to such protests? It beats me.
Let’s give it a shot: “The purpose of the war is to secure oil, to limit or (best) annihilate an enemy regime, to better control a vital resource (limited but one crucial for the future). This is neo-imperialism, militaristic, power-based and which reveals intentions that do not blend well with politically correct rhetoric.
Iff successful, this adventure might pull the US out of a downward spiral. We must win this war. And if we must resort to any use of power, so be it.
For you sexual deviants, you Pretti-style immigrant lovers, you complainers, you freaks, what can I tell you? We can make some concessions to your freaky deviancy, but the economic base of the nation is in crisis. You must choose to become just a “wee bit fascistic” with us as we enact these plans. If you do your reward will be that we will leave you alone to carry out your perversions in relative peace.
(TBC)
leave it out. The list is a framework for both evaluating protest movements that don’t use it, and hopefully adopted by movements that will going forward. A self-deprecating statement will be off-putting to organizers rather than reflective.
A framework for identifying and expelling the black shirt anarchists that infiltrate protests would be better–those that started the (literal) Rittenhouse dumpster fire, those that beached the January 6th Capital barriers (especially the Ashley Babbitt window… Watch how they suddenly retreat as soon as the glass is down) and those that break the windows to facilitate looting.
Wouldn’t 13 justify any protest?
True. That’s why I hesitate to add it. Of course, 1 out of 13 is not exactly a ringing endorsement…
14. Does the protest or demonstration serve as occupational therapy for those who are retired or unemployed and cannot find any meaningful way to spend their time otherwise?
I think 1. You need to verify protesters aren’t paid and 2. Your list is adequate as is. If you need to pay people to attend, it has just become a racket instead of a cause. Re specifically “no kings” or as I call it “anti Trump” protests. They lost and can’t believe it so they’re upset. He’s, you know, not following rules. Damn him. So we will be a thorn until he dies. Regardless of what specific actions he takes. He’s a boor and a brute so we don’t like him or anything he’s doing. (Insert cognitive dissonance scale here). Also… I am not specifically “pro Trump” unfortunately, I tread the squishy middle where we tend to get ran down by the insane left and right. As I told someone today “they’re all just using you to their own means, wake up.”
May I venture a comment?
They lost and can’t believe it so they’re upset. He’s, you know, not following rules. Damn him. So we will be a thorn until he dies. Regardless of what specific actions he takes.
Yes, they lost. But the MAGA encampment won because of a uniquely popular America First! hope and promise. That was what Trump promised for a full decade. In this sense (if in truth he has “betrayed his base”) he reveals a master-class in demagoguery. If true the NY Intellectual class was right: his supporters are uneducated, low-class, non-university-educated dupes. The PERFECT demographic to be manipulated for cynical ends by an ultra-wealthy “donar class” of ultra-corrupt billionaires (a la Epstein et al) who, when seen from one angle, direct the present.
Now that this particular adventure has been launched, the America First class (mostly a youth-class) is withdrawing “support” and, rather amazingly, is finding some common cause with Left-Progressive critics. But the doctrine of America First is by nature populist and also working-class oriented. Therefore the bridge is not so far-fetched or impossible.
The billionaire class, the military industrial regime of the US, and the ultra Israel Zionist class is not a popular class nor the American working class. For this reason it is kind of weird but very interesting that Tucker Carlson is nourishing, or exploiting, a significant audience that seeks coherent “interpretive models” to make sense of inevitable betrayal.
As this war progresses, and again if it goes badly, we must all realize that things will heat up socially and politically in the summertime. If there is some “magical success” (this is honestly my hope) then that can mitigate the mood of enacted chaos coning down the line.
1. Is this protest just and necessary?
In a few months, if the present Iran enterprise to take over control of Iranian oil production and eliminate a strong chaos agent in the region does not resolve successfully, the present administration will likely lose the mid-terms and, as some predict, they will render Trump impotent, resolve again to impeach him, and then bring out the charges against him for prosecution. The No Kings sentiment will transform into a lust for retribution to see Donald Trump hauled off to jail.
For the last month or more I have been teaching on the topic of Raw Power and the Machiavellian nature of the way Power functions. Just in the same way that the present US admin can invade a neighbor country with a contrived justification of bogus legality (to bring to trial Maduro) and show the entire world that all this BS about fair use of power, the justice orientation of this great power, and all the crap 💩 about democracy and other pompously expressed values (i.e. overt lies) … is one hundred percent a farce …
… in exactly the same way people all across the nation respond by imitating their own raw use of power that requires no justification at all. It is a question of getting a job done. It is mob rule but expressed in different levels.
If you-plural could begin to take even a baby step towards dismantling of acute American hypocrisy and false notions about your-plural role in the present phase of history, I assume intellectual and moral healing could begin. But no, more likely is a hardening of attitude and “doubling-down” in recalcitrance.
The nation is beginning to unravel and the stitches at the seams come apart. The question still remains to be answered: How did this come about? To what truth-telling discourse shall I be directed to? How will responsibility be assigned?
Ten years ago (!!!) I was reading Ortega y Gasset La Rebelión de las Masas (1930) (The Revolt of the Masses):
”… we live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance. With more means at its disposal, more knowledge, more technique than ever, it turns out that the world today goes the same way as the worst of worlds that have been; it simply drifts. Hence the strong combination of a sense of power and a sense of insecurity which has taken up its abode in the soul of modern man. To him is happening what was said of the Regent during the minority of Louis XV: he had all the talents except the talent to make use of them. To the XIX Century many things seemed no longer possible, firm-fixed as was its faith in progress. Today, by the very fact that everything seems possible to us, we have a feeling that the worst of all is possible: retrogression, barbarism, decadence.
I wonder about No. 13. I’ve got it!! Let No. 13 be where people, some people, but I will accept just one:
Begins to be able to tell the real truth about things!
https://youtu.be/L5XI2oxUakY?si=v2EXa5vlOr_xCTG_
It is (in the popular mind at least) a start in the right direction. Once the narratives begin to unravel though there will be a time of intense drama and upheaval.
Said in Mr Rogers calm baby voice: “Can you begin to tell the truth? I think you can!” 😊