zlacker

A mass protest is by all means a form of collectivism. Everyone has the right to protest and everyone has the responsibility to keep it civilized. Collective punishment may be a violation of human right and it should be condemned but what is your solution when you have the manpower of say 1,000 people vs a crowd of 100,000 and your task is to make sure that the city is still there the next morning? Just do the math.

>>axegon+(OP)
And any time the police "punish" the entire crowd, rather than the individuals who do the acts, that's called collective punishment. It's a favorite tactic of sociopaths and bullys.

>>axegon+(OP)
> A mass protest is by all means a form of collectivism.

No, it's not. Participation in a mass protest may be motivated by collectivist ideals, or it can be motivated by the individualist ideal that it is better to discourage a government course of action that could in the future be of grave danger to you individually, and that the immediate risk of participation in the protest is less than the long-term risk of the policy being protested against.

People of ideologized strictly and emphatically opposed to collectivism engage in mass protests.

> Collective punishment may be a violation of human right [...]

> what is your solution when [...] your task is to make sure that the city is still there the next morning?

The legitimate task of the police is to protect the rights of all (innocent, suspect, and even, except to the extent specifically and legitimately deprived due to their guilt, the guilty). There is no circumstances when participation in a gross abuse of human rights is within the scope of their legitimate task.

>>dragon+d2
My point is that it isn't black and white scenario. Make no mistakes, there are policemen who are nothing more than organic waste, I've had encounters with such: I was pulled out of a car by the neck, tossed on the ground by 4 heavily armed policemen while they completely thrashed my car. Did I get a "We're sorry" after they figured out that I was not the guy they were after? No, I literally got "GTFO NOW". But... Let's stick to the math.

You've provided the theory, but you didn't answer my practical question: you have 1000 people representing authority and 100,000 people crowd. Let's say 4% of that crowd is violent. That is still 4 times your capacity. All while a large number of the remaining 96k are shouting at you. Put yourself in the shoes of those 1000 and your task being "restore order". In which case, the ball is in the crowd's yard. As an outside spectator(and someone who literally grew up in the epicenter of daily protests as a child), what I'm seeing here is the recent South Park episode turning into a documentary.

It's really easy to quote laws and rules, but in the real world, they are not always applicable. And in the case of mass gatherings, they are hardly ever applicable. Are you seriously suggesting that you were never put in a position where your only course of action was to grossly break the rules? If so, I envy you, I really do. No one hates breaking the rules more than I do but on many occasions in life, I've had to. It doesn't have to do with how rules and laws are defined or implemented. It's simple math: you have two bricks and three holes to fill, otherwise your house will flood. It's the same story with the pandemic - no one wants lockdowns or businesses crashing but it's either that or the death of millions.