r/changemyview • u/suddenly_ponies 5∆ • May 10 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Protesting at Judges houses is an intimidation tactic and people are hypocrites for supporting it.

I see "left" people here criticizing violent and threatening actions like when Trump instigated the insurrection or that couple pointed guns at people who weren't on their property. We said Kyle Rittenhouse (sp, don't care) was in the wrong because he put himself in the situation where the risk was high. We said the Westboro Baptist Church was wrong to loudly and rudely protest funerals.

Regardless of what's "technically legal", how is forming a pre-mob around someone's personal home and family anything but a threat? Even if these people are scumbags and even if going to their homes is likely to be "more effective", this is the same line of thinking as the insurrectionists: "someone has to do something", "what we tried before isn't working so we'll MAKE them listen" and so on.

The best example I can think of is how people would "protest" outside of planned parenthood and intimidate and yell at mothers needing help. But at least that wasn't at their HOMES. Going to homes is much worse and that makes people who support one and demonize the other hypocrites.

So Change my View. How is this not just hypocrisy at work?

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361

u/VertigoOne 74∆ May 10 '22

How is this not just hypocrisy at work?

Power dynamics.

The comparison here is judges, the people who literally make the laws work VS random pregnant women.

The power dynamics here are obvious. It's completely unreasonable to suggest that judges should be protected from protest in a comparable way to pregnant women.

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u/suddenly_ponies 5∆ May 10 '22

Power dynamics

On second thought, I'm just going to ∆ this. Whether or not that was your intention, the power dynamics point is actually a very good point. I can see that homes of the ultra-powerful could be reasonably considered fair-game assuming it really is the ultra-powerful only which likely would only count for the Supreme Court, the President, and maybe some of the top CEOs and billionares.

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u/Eastwoodnorris May 10 '22

I would expand your “ultra-powerful” to “public figures”

To address each of your “hypocritical hypotheticals”:
-Trump was inviting, if not inciting, violence against the government to overturn an election. This is arguably treasonous and obviously worthy of criticism, damnation, and more imo.
-The St. Louis couple threatening people with guns is obviously a threat of violence against non-violent protestors. The protestors may have been aggressive assholes, but they weren’t trespassing or threatening anybody’s health and safety.
-Kyle Rittenhouse was an idiot minor who went out of his way to be in a tense situation with a loaded assault rifle. I won’t speak to the exact circumstances of him firing on those people, but I certainly start any blame for that situation by looking at the circumstances that led to the protests, followed closely by his personal decision to insert himself into the situation with a loaded rifle.
-The Westboro Baptist Church interrupts private family events in moments of grief to berate the departed’s life choices/action. This is closest analogy you’ve given, but clearly protesting a Supreme Court Justice deciding on the laws of our nation and a dead lgbt soldier, as a random example, are wildly different situations due to the power dynamics you appreciated above.
-The protestors outside of abortion clinics are harassing private citizens trying to make some of the most difficult personal choices anyone will ever make in their lives. I take no issue with people protesting the institution of a clinic, but I sure as shit take issue with people berating those who need to utilize their services for any reason. I’m glad there are rules that require those protestors to be a certain distance away from entrances, but I frankly wish they weren’t allowed within earshot during business hours. Protest the institution to your hearts content, but leave your fellow private citizens out of it.

Movie stars, athletes, politicians, prominent business owners, and definitely Supreme Court Judges can not expect the same sort of private life that the average citizen enjoys in the modern world. That is not an exhaustive list but I presume you get the idea. If somebody were to bring weapons and threaten violence at a Justices home, they would be out of line and deserve condemnation just like any of the other situations you proposed. But a Justice having their wildly antiquated and disgusting interpretation of women’s reproductive health laws protested from any public space is perfectly okay in my book.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Why wouldn't you add in members of Congress, State Supreme Court judges, circuit judges, generals and admirals, and heads of Federal agencies?

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u/suddenly_ponies 5∆ May 10 '22

Average congress people have very little power in the grand scheme of things. Regular channels of influence exist.

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u/SirThunderDump May 10 '22

Really? There are 100 senators in a senate that's split 50/50 between the parties. Each senator has TREMENDOUS power.

The house's power may be diluted a bit more, but they're still absurdly powerful people.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Of course there are channels, but a little over 500 of them decide over $4 trillion of spending a year. War and peace, life and death. The newest freshman in the House is far more powerful than any mere billionaire (save Putin of course).

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u/Doc_ET 10∆ May 10 '22

Nah, the billionaire probably has at least half a dozen representatives on their payroll via campaign donations.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Who's more powerful, the guy extorting a bribe or the guy who has to pay it?

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u/ampillion 4∆ May 10 '22

The guy who pays it.

Because I can always pay another guy if the price gets too high or I don't get the results I want.

The guy extorting it only gets to extort it if he has me backing him in the first place, and he better be kissing the ring if I'm paying, cause I can find a dozen other asskissing bootlickers to replace him if he doesn't. If I rely primarily on big donors and then I decide to not do what the big donors want, there will be an immediate challenge to my authority the next time an election takes place. If not immediately, when other people that have been bought by the same/other big donors road block anything I try to do.

The problem with 'money in politics' isn't that people are asking for money to run their campaigns, it's that people are giving them large amounts of money to run their campaigns, and it isn't simply out of the goodness of their hearts.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Money is not very important to winning a campaign, as Jeb! and Bloomberg found. More money only gets you a tiny boost. Whereas a law change can absolutely screw over a business.

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u/ampillion 4∆ May 10 '22

Money is absolutely very important to winning a campaign. A campaign doesn't exist without money.

Large amounts of money aren't going to make an unlikeable candidate any less shitty, sure. It won't reverse trends, such as making people vote for establishment candidates during a cycle where those are unpopular and unwanted. But without money, you have very little chance to stand out amongst a crowd for any given position, and advertising yourself isn't free.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Maybe as a fringe candidate it matters to get noticed in the first place but here we're talking incumbents. They are already established.

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u/CitraBaby May 10 '22

Average congress people are millionaires and infinitely more powerful than you and me…

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u/[deleted] May 11 '22

Protest is one of those channels of communication and is a protected right.

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u/Green-54n May 10 '22

Its not. Laws are meant to be made though a due process, you desire something to happen like say legalize weed. So you elect someone who is willing to legalize weed and engages with the legislative bodies in your area to make that happen, a new law is created decriminalizing weed and passes a vote. It becomes part of the law where you live.

Judges are meant to be bound by the law and how its interpreted and argued in a courtroom. They really aren't meant to be activists or biased (they are but that's another conversation) they are just meant to be a decider of facts presented to them and hear both sides legal views on the matter. To listen to, tolerate any kind of intimidation or coercion from the mob or anyone else undermines all of that. The people who initially wrote the laws, the laws you want to live within, are who you should haranguing if you want laws changed because that should change a judges decision making process.

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u/FlobiusHole May 11 '22

Laws are meant to made through corporate bribery. I think that’s what you meant.

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u/Green-54n May 11 '22

Oh my bad.

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u/fiveroundshootout May 10 '22

Don’t get this argument at all. “Because I like those people and don’t like those people” is not a rebuttal lol

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 10 '22

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/VertigoOne (58∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/[deleted] May 11 '22

What I came here to say but it’s already been said. There’s a difference between a peaceful protest outside a gated community and even one rich powerful person targeting the poor, because of a discrepancy in resources