The reactions to these protests have been incredibly unhinged.
They have been overwhelmingly peaceful. The biggest examples of violence that I’ve seen (other than police action) have been counterprotestors throwing fireworks at the UCLA encampment.
Locking yourself in a university building is not violence. Pitching a tent on the quad or blocking a street are not violent acts. Civil disobedience = breaking the law in a non-violent way in order to draw attention to a larger issue.
I also haven’t seen any first-hand examples of antisemitism at the demonstrations.
Breaking the law in a non-violent way is not sacred. You are breaking the law and will be punished accordingly. I feel like we as a society in general have lost track of the point of non-violent protest and simply decided that anyone protesting is inherently sacred and good as long as it's "peaceful" -- and then stretched to great lengths the definition of "peaceful" and "non-violent".
Compounding matters is the fact that even when the protests do turn violent and hateful and otherwise non-peaceful, there's a common arsenal of defenses that get deployed no matter what:
- Those are just isolated examples and the "vast majority" of protests are "overwhelmingly" peaceful
- It wasn't really violence because I can just change the definition of what counts as violence
- All this violence is just outside agitators conducting false flag attacks to discredit the protests
- Well yeah but whatabout this other example of the other side being violence? Will you condemn that? Whatabout whatabout whatabout whatabout whatabout (this is always the last resort of losers fighting a losing argument)
You are not entitled to choose which laws you will obey simply because you do it in the name of social protest. That includes not only laws against violence and hate speech (which have been broken by countless anti-Jew protesters around the country) but also laws protecting property rights and the freedom of movement of other people. Even if you were conducting the world's most peaceful and kindhearted protest, if Columbia University does not want you on its lawn then as a private institution that owns said lawn, it has the right to demand you leave, and if you disobey you are then trespassing and may be removed by whatever force proves necessary to remove you. This is a basic tenet of human civilization that has held up for tens of thousands of years.
You are correct - people who break the law will be arrested and punished. That’s the point of civil disobedience. You are causing trouble to attract attention so your message can be heard. If Columbia had just allowed the students to stay inside Hamilton Hall until they were ready to leave, the action would have actually been less effective.
These are basic ideas of activism. I don’t expect the average American to understand that but you’d think people on here who have an understanding of history would recognize it. As others have said, these tactics were used extensively in the civil rights movement, Vietnam War protests, and on countless other topics since then.
You can disagree with their message, but most of the unhinged reactions have centered around their tactics.
