Barack Obama is fortunate that these demonstration repression technologies did not exist during the time of Martin Luther King, because who knows if the civil rights movement would ever have succeeded if they did.
Were lucky? I guarantee you they would much rather have had to deal with sound cannons than the batons, dogs, and fire hoses that they did have to deal with.
don't think so, batons/dogs/hoses put their struggle into a visual perspective, you see a cop whaling on someone you'll start asking if the reason they are doing it is justified.
You see someone running away from a sound cannon, you just shrug it off since you aren't experiencing it yourself
The fact that Sachin's response was understandable is ample evidence that this post is toxic to HN.
A post about how sound cannons work? Edgy for HN, but fair game. But a post about sound cannons used at a G20 protest written up in The Guardian and routed by way of Slashdot?
What's happening in this thread is a perfect example of When Bad Posts Happen To Good HN Members. _FLAGGED_.
I think in general it helps to be more polite in general, especially in forums or discussion boards.
At least the respondant was good enough to quote a source.
However, in my view as the civil rights protesters were 1 arguing for a greater (or at least closer to home) cause, 2 were set upon by dogs and 3 weren't going around breaking windows, the OP can quite rightly be called stupid for not looking into the facts a bit more rather than just mouthing off.
"You wouldn't dare say that in person" isn't much of an argument. There's no shortage of uncomfortable truths I don't trust Joe Average to take rationally.
You know what? You're right. I would probably have also used profanity in person. If I were feeling frisky, I absolutely would have taken a swing.
If you are an adult and you don't know about the lynchings, fire hoses, attack dogs, and other atrocities during the civil rights movement in the States, and you make an off-hand comment about Dr. King, you deserve less than my contempt.
Why do you assume he didn't know about these things? All he said was that with all these additional high-tech weapons at the disposal of police, it would have been that much harder.
For example, pictures of protesters being attacked by dogs and firehoses, when published in the north, did a lot to increase support for the civil rights movement. The insidious thing about a lot of the newer anti-protest weapons is that they are designed to produce boring photographs.
This was the most interesting thing about the "Don't tase me, bro" incident - tasers and clubs are roughly equivalent, yet a picture of someone being tasered isn't nearly as provocative as a picture of someone being beaten with nightstick. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that police would have bludgeoned that kid, but they were perfectly willing to taser him.
Thus, weapons like tasers and sound cannons increase the number of situations in which police are willing to use dangerous-though-not-usually-lethal force. Using them to quell protests is only one area where this is true, though it's probably the most notable.
Demonstrations like Rosa Parks on the bus and the Woolworth's sit-ins wouldn't have been affected. Fewer shocking pictures in the paper might have slowed down the movement but I don't think by much.
Honestly, that would be worse. To knowingly say that a non-lethal instrument like a sound cannon is morally equivalent to dogs, hoses, and god-knows-what-else is crazy. (And I read the OP as saying sound cannons would be worse, and I don't even know how to begin to express my emotions to that.)
Look, you can have your issues with the police's response to a small group of protesters in Pittsburgh, but you know what the nice thing is about boring photographs? No one there is bleeding to death. No one has been singled out for humiliation and treated as less than human based on the color of their skin.
Thank you. What I wrote was, in fact, what I meant.
It's precisely the success of the civil rights movement and other popular movements that have prompted the development of weapons intended to disperse demonstrations that don't create martyrs or inflame people who aren't actually present at the demonstration.
Nobody but you has claimed they're "morally equivalent". These are on the market because they're thought to be more effective (even if only because they can be used indiscriminately). If that's true we should all be glad the little Eichmanns of the 1960s didn't have them to set back civil rights even farther.
That is a bit of an overreaction to an innocent comment. He made a valid point (better non-lethal crowd control could have stopped the civil rights movement) and you chose to take it a wrong way.
What is worse is that the Civil Rights movement happened quite a while ago. I doubt that you were personally involved. This is like someone getting frisky about the Second World War or the Vietnam War. What is the point?
> If I were feeling frisky, I absolutely would have taken a swing.
One problem with hitting people for what they say is that each instance of it contributes to a social norm of hitting people for what they say. Maybe you only hit people justifiably, but those who see you do it, and who are hit by you, might have worse judgment than you.
This is also a problem with incivility. Maybe you are a sufficiently good judge of character and intelligence that you single out idiots with perfect accuracy. But others who see your words, and especially those whom you call idiots, might have worse judgment than you, and they'll replicate your actions. This leads to a world where people are rude to each other rather than having level-headed arguments. So I don't think you should call someone an idiot, even when you're confident that they're an idiot. It has indirect harmful effects.
