Stereotypical Extreme Protest Movement

Numerous times, protests start off as untroubling. In fact, they are beneficial to a certain extent, for they “provide a vent to society and also allow governments to understand better the issues their citizens are facing” (UN News Centre 2012). However, often these protests cross this blurry line and are rendered violent, causing danger to the American people. A recent example of a protest transforming into a riot was the Anti- Trump protest in Portland. These protests started off as being peaceful and allowed the protesters to express their opinions on the issue. However, the protesters eventually became so invested in the matter that it quickly mutated into a riot with people smashing windows, kicking cars, and vandalizing buildings (USA TODAY 2016) .This rapid change from peace to violence is a result of the blurry line between what is considered peaceful and what is considered violent. Due to the few restrictions on both the right to petition and assemble, what is perceived as violent is open to interpretation. More specifically, the protesters may not have deemed that kicking cars and smashing windows was violent; thus, they proceeded with these clearly dangerous activities anyways. Since the unlimited nature of both of these rights leaves a massive gray area in regards to what is

Protests are a way that many citizens have historically exercised their right to freedom of speech and as to voice their opinions on current matters in the U.S. as well as other nations. Protests help the uninformed get informed on specific issues, and try to persuade fellow citizens. What were some of the effective aspects of the protests that were portrayed in “The Matrix”, “Battle in Seattle” as well as those in “The Letter from Birmingham Jail”? What were the downfalls? An effective protest is one where an advocated idea gets across to the intended audience. Peaceful protests tend to have a better outcome than those that lead to violence.

The protests by the Westboro Baptist Church for example tend to be widely disapproved of by others. Although the Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. Phelps in 2011 that they have the right to protest public issues and not be liable for tort of emotional distress, they have gained little public support because their cause is seen as hateful and bigoted by many people and is even denounced by many other Christians. Their inability to appeal to a larger segment of the population will ensure that their cause will not grow much beyond their current capacity. Some of the more famous movements in world history, like the civil rights movement and Indian independence movement in the 1930s, were successful in part because of their ability to convey their compelling concerns in a passionate manner and justify their actions to the public. Without this kind of support, I believe they would not have been so well known and successful as they

In the United States, the protest has always been an important tool of democracy, a way for the minority to let itself be heard. Take the Civil Rights movement. Today's race relations are better than they were fifty years ago because a relatively small group of people convinced enough of the country that racism was a disease that would kill everything that made America special.

Peaceful protest leads to both positive and negative impacts on a free society. The main issue of the society isn't just people making bold moves like these, it has to do with people being able to accept them and not deal with it in a violent way, thinking that, that is acceptable and going to solve anything, when it really make it

The protestors do want attention, but not merely for the sake of attention. In her article “The Sociology of Feeling and Emotion: Selected Possibilities,” Arlie Russell Hochschild details a deeper reasoning for this desire: “Social movements for change make ‘bad’ feelings okay, and they make them useful. Depending on one’s point of view, they make bad feelings ‘rational.’ They also make them visible” (298). Hochschild claims that the purpose of the attention is to make negative emotions visible to society at large, and to put them to work towards a positive goal rather than leave them to damage the community from

Our right to free speech and to peaceably assemble is protected in the First Amendment, and is something we should take seriously. "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" (Amendment I). One area of "peaceful resistance" is petitioning to government leaders and taking a stand on what is true and godly. When this is done, people have the opportunity to give government officials a point of view that perhaps they would have never considered

A protest itself does not have very much credibility but individuals holding signs making claims such as “fracking will seriously damage your health” are found to be credible by those who agree with the statement that is trying to be made and discredited by those who disagree. It is not effective because the audience does not care where the image came from they ust care that they imagine a future where they need to where gas masks and the health of their families will be in

Protests can start out peaceful but quickly turn violent. Though protests can be amazing and cause social change and change within the government they can also turn violent and leave behind a huge mess. An example of this is the Dakota Access Pipeline protest. It started out as a peaceful protest against the pipeline being built close to Native American land and along the way turned into a violent protest. Everything was going fine and as planned then things started going south. The sheriff’s office said, “According to numerous witnesses within five minutes the crowd of protesters, estimated to be a few hundred people became violent. They stampeded into the construction area with horses, dogs and vehicles” (Peralta). In this case, the protest

Violently protesting the presidential election does bring notice to the protesters, but not at all in a positive way. Politicly speaking, there are many effective ways of sharing opinions and spreading your ideas peacefully. Citizens that choose to violently protest are not taken seriously and because instead of making changes they are breaking laws and causing serious problems in major cities across the country. Protesters need to understand how our government functions on a local, state, and federal level. The president doesn't hold some kind of crown in our country. If our president elect for this following January is as bad as protesters claim, he will be removed from office immediately so they have nothing to worry about. Protesting in these current ways make these individuals appear uneducated and negatively radical to the eyes of the public.

Protesting is extremely un-American. After all, this country was founded by people smiling and accepting their circumstances silently and hoping for the best. Said absolutely nobody ever. The basis of the American democracy is freedom of expression. From the Boston Tea Party and boycotts against the Quartering Act to the 2017 March for Science, the history of our nation is dotted with instances of peaceful resistance and protest that are, for the most part, viewed in an extremely favorable light.

For me living overseas, I avoid demonstrations location and suspicious gathering because a nonviolent demonstration or protest could escalate into a violent riot due to some tension by the frustrated public over social issues such as injustice. For example, August 2011 in London there was an uproar caused by the police shooting of a young man of mixed race named Mark Duggin (Kalleberg, 2015). On the other hand, in the United States, we had several example Ferguson, Missouri riot. I learned that the 1992 Rodney King beating and Los Angeles riots, said to change America since the 1960s (Stewart, 2012). As a rational behavior, such an attack on individuals triggers and instigates people into joining to fight for change fueling a riot. Concerning

Society is at its worst because of protesting. People are fed up with the country because of protesting. It's not fair to call it peaceful protesting or peaceful resistance. The law is the law and nobody is above the law. It's not fair to sit back and watch on TV what's going on and not be able to stop it. For my entire life I've been thankful to live in North Dakota because of how peaceful it is and it was for as long as I can remember. There was very peaceful very minor protesting sometimes and even then it's hard to remember those. I hear it from many other parts of the country and now I know what it's like to live in a place where you feel like you don't have any authority and you have to watch “peaceful protests” go on without the blink of an eye. Is this what we want our children to grow up in, knowing that if you don't like the rules then you should scream about it and not get in trouble for breaking them. All our life, all through school we are taught that rules must be followed and things have a reason and that's what keeps the world spinning is all the laws and rules and obedience, but now all we see is people (knowing that there are many different pipelines around the u.s.) freaking out because for some reason this one's going to be unsafe and this one's going to infect our water or ruin our water. This protest is very real and I made the mistake that this was just a

People have the rights to freely protest peacefully, if they feel as though the government is not being just to them can be seen as a form of Social Movement. The problem comes in when the Acting crowds, protest turns into an aggravating riot, causing harm to other people and their property. It not only draws away from what they are fighting for, but it gets more attention, globally especially the negative aspects when media runs with it. I came across an article where the President of the United States, talks about the "criminals and thugs who tore up" the city of Baltimore on Monday night, after rioting and looting paralyzed the city and overwhelmed local officials”. He also mention that the media, play a major part, because they do not react

Some people believe that violent protest do not promote change. They believe that it is just a way for the protesters to get on tv.