this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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What people in this thread are missing or ignoring:
All combinations have happened. Peaceful student-run protests with overreactive police. Violent non-student protests with police doing their job to control things. And everything in between.
Do you really think the UC is the only university in the world having protests? Because you know... I've seen protests in so many other countries but none of them had a university buying a fucking grenade launcher to "pacify" them.
The tear gas is definitely excessive, but the right amount of “weapons” to buy is not 0.
That's exactly the amount of weapons universities in other countries buy. And apparently, they all work and deal with protests frequently.
Do they have “protests” where they go smash any business in the surrounding area that’s a franchise of a recognizable brand? When it started as a protest about a politician?
You think other countries don't have protests?
I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to use force to stop things from actively being destroyed.
Yes, and the police force from the city, which by the way is not as militarized as the American one, deals with people without the university needing to buy weapons.
Ah, so the problem you see is the university having its own police department.
I definitely do think it’s a bit weird that the university has its own police. That’s not uncommon for universities in the United States. I’ll be honest that I don’t fully know the history behind it.
No. The problem is not just the university police, but how they deal with protests. First of all, a university having a police force is already crazy, but dealing with protesters with grenade launchers? Maybe America's problem is not the protests but how they think they should deal with them, just saying.
Because if you tell me that the police need to arm themselves that much because citizens can be armed too and they need to counter those weapons then the problem is still weapons.
the problem with the person you're arguing with is that they clearly value property more than the human. Who cares if a business gets destroyed? Well in america you don't have the support structures to help that business recover from that, since insurance will try their damn hardest to not cover it, and the government isn't going to help. So the person you're arguing with is arguing from a completely different position than you. You're arguing "why are you using to force to stop protests" and they're arguing "property might be destroyed, so you have to stop that".
Wow.
My guy, there are significant, demonstrable, and studied long term negative effects on communities (problems that directly effect the people living there) due to property damage from protests. You're right that it stems from a lack of support structures, but that cause doesn't change the bad it does to communities and the people in them. It disproportianately effects the poor as well, as those with the means tend to flee areas where propery destruction/rioting/looting occured, which takes money out of the local area, which snowballs until a once thriving community is now a food desert with no businesses or services available for the residents.
Yeah, fuck the big businesses. Fuck the 1%. But don't cut off vital services from a community by driving all of them out. Go make an actual statement and go after the owners. Go after the HQs. Go to the executives' and politicians' homes and where they actually work and spend time.
See how quick the police respond to people destroying inner city businesses vs a peaceful crowd in the street in front of Maxine Water's house, and then tell me which is more important to the rich (and therefore far less damaging to the poor).
If you're going to risk getting riot equipment used on you, pick more valuable fucking targets.
You’ve already said the university having its own police force isn’t what you are really concerned with.
So here’s the part where you keep straw-manning. I’ve agreed with you on this point several times. Tear gas is excessive. I find it hard to come up with a scenario where tear gas isn’t excessive. There should be limits on the amount of force police can use.