Three Species of Protesters

[mystery-ak]

June 13, 2020
Three Species of Protesters
By E.M. Cadwaladr

I have participated in numerous public protests in my life – on both sides of the ideological fence.  Regarding the litany of naïve causes I once championed, I will humbly take the Fifth.  While it’s always a risk to generalize, I believe that the people I’ve encountered at these events can be sorted in three basic groups: the sincere, the radical, and the barbarous.

The sincere are generally the largest group one finds at a protest.  These are the people who have come to lend their voices to what they genuinely believe to be a righteous cause.  Only rarely do they have particular goals in mind.  I wouldn’t characterize the sincere as “peaceful protesters.”  The term “peaceful” isn’t really compatible with the word “protest.”  No one ever said to himself: “I think I’ll go down to the protest for a little peace.”  “Nonviolent” is a more apt description — “I’m going to shout, chant, and maybe wave a sign, but I’m going to stop somewhere short of breaking windows and hurting people.”  Protests, of all kinds, are gatherings of angry people.  They may indeed be “peaceable” but are never “peaceful.”  “Peaceful” has become the media code word for violent but excused.

At a protest, you surrender a certain share of your individuality to the emotional energy of the crowd.  You cannot help it.  Protests are not public debates over the finer points of public policy.  The crowd is not an intelligent animal, but a passionate one.  Nevertheless, decent people do not become a mob of anarchists at the drop of a hat — or, for that matter, at the drop of a red baseball cap.  Protests are as good or as bad as the people who compose them.  They are, at best, a means for people to show political leaders that their particular interest group is not entirely powerless.  They are also a means for the protesters to teach the same lesson to themselves.  The crowd is a force to be reckoned with — the individual has only as much power as society’s institutions have integrity.

more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/three_species_of_protesters.html

[PeteS in CA]

While it’s always a risk to generalize, I believe that the people I’ve encountered at these events can be sorted in three basic groups: the sincere, the radical, and the barbarous.

Ummmmmmmm, wow! What a succinct and apt summary! I've seen two errant extremes on the current protest-riots: pretending that the protests and riots are totally separate distinct things; equating the protests and riots. "Cadwaladr" captures reality better than my calling-out of unreality.