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The Stupidity of Protestors: Blocked Bridge in Texas
So Austin City Limits is a giant music festival in Austin, TX, and it is currently in session this weekend. (Paul McCartney and Metallica are playing at opposite ends of Zilker Park!) Literally thousands of people converge to one section of the city.
What do I see as I walk over the pedestrian bridge that runs parallel to the bridge for a steady stream of vehicles going to ACL? A major traffic pinch-point at the best of times, much less during a major event?
None other than a group of 20-30 protestors shouting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Kavanaugh has got to go!” while blocking cars from moving. This, mind you, is after the judge has been confirmed.
Three thoughts crossed my mind at once:
- Texas needs to have more than football coaches teaching children civics and history so that they’re aware of when protesting becomes a futile exercise in self-indulgence,
- I am grateful, grateful, grateful to not be in a car on that bridge trying to go to a festival for which I paid $300 or to my job or to any other destinations that are important to an individual’s life, and
- Maybe some people in Austin — those stuck in hot cars on the bridge? — will rip off their Beto bumper stickers and go out now to vote for Ted Cruz?
Hard to say what the impact those people think they are making, but I suspect it’s not actually a positive one.
Published in General
I lived for a few years of my childhood in the South American nation of Bolivia. Whenever someone had a strike or a protest they’d blockade the roads, and we’d get a day off of school. Naturally I was always rooting for more protests.
If someone ran over a few, it would stop.
That’s hilarious. Of course, I get that from a kid. :)
I’d probably lean on my horn until it drove them batty.
More batty, maybe?
One quibble. My high school football coaches were patriots who loved America and knew civics and American history quite well. They were kind, polite , and well mannered. And our football team was ferocious and usually did well in the state tournament. I couldn’t have had better history or civics teachers.
From your mouth to God’s ears, Lois. That may be one good thing that could possibly come out of these instances, from people who do not understand the difference between their rights to protest and the respect that others deserve who do share their point of view. Just another example of self indulgence, and solipsism, which really does seem like the zeitgeist today.
@LoisLane, from your quote of the protestors’ chant, they haven’t updated their script since at least the 1960s. Nor have they changed the tactics of their grandparents.
This is an incredible opportunity for the Republican Party. Misbehavior by the Democrats has annoyed a huge portion of the country to no end – Kavanaugh now is sworn in. An energized progressive left has alienated vast swaths of the county and now will continue to do so through Election Day.
No butter on my popcorn, please.
That’s great! Football coaches can definitely be good teachers. Surely many of them are patriots, polite, and well-mannered. I think sports can be a valuable part of any kid’s high school experience.
However, if you look at Texas history departments, they are full of nothing but coaches who must also win games. While a football coach can be a good teacher, his incentives are set up differently per the… well… football.
Many coaches are not good teachers, and it seems that schools care more about sport than academics.
That’s not the best formula.
I think it would increase in intensity, and also turn the tide in their favor. Better to just let them create more Republican votes.
Actually, that is exactly right.
What was it Sun-Tzu wrote? “Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake.” Let the Dems continue in their role as vandals, public nuisances, thugs and general malcontents. They will make their very name a stench in the nostrils, smoke in the eyes of sane, decent people and that will have an effect on voting patterns.
Here is local coverage that seems to me to be much too sympathetic to these protestors per the traffic hassles they caused, which aren’t well represented in the video. I saw them when they first started blocking the bridge. This took a loooonnnngggg time to clear. I think that’s a bit crazy, too.
I also think the young conservative from UT is pretty measured, especially considering he had to put up with a much less tolerant person on his school’s campus earlier this week. (Notice that the same guy from the local news is also at the table of conservatives being assaulted by another student.)
Thanks for the video, Lois. I have to tell you that compared with the New York Coverage, especially on the radio, this coverage from that Texas station is Pulitzer material!
It is so sad and anger inspiring to watch a woman fall for this. As I said on another conversation, as with many conservatives, my heart goes out to women who have suffered at this kind of vile cruelty. But if we don’t allow innocent men to be taken seriously also, what have we become?
Oh, no! Well, they did get two sides in the story, which was great. I wish they’d maybe spoken to someone who was inconvenienced by the protestors. And I know that some people who watched the protestors were not cheering in support. They were mumbling in bemusement from where I was standing, noting how stupid blocking traffic was.
The second video from UT is a bit more disturbing, but it’s just raw footage. I don’t know what the dean who interrupted did, but I hope it was more robust than just telling the girl ripping up signs to move on.
Remember, Lois, I wrote in comparison with the New York coverage. Surely you know that I would have done it better. I was just saying that this was great compared to what I endure.
I know this is off topic, but there is no point in popcorn that is not covered in real butter.
Never off topic. Some things are important.
Anyone trying to use the Lamar bridge during ACL is nuts or from out-of-town.
As for a protesting tactic, street blocking is very risky. It offends law-and-order types and people that work. Not gonna win any converts there.
We were having a big problem with this in Minnesota. They were blocking freeways and the light rail system. People were missing medical appointments and there were personal problems, plus all of the economic damage.
When the Republicans tried to increase the penalty from misdemeanor to gross misdemeanor, the United Nations put them on the human rights watch list. I am not making that up.
Hang the United Nations and turn the General Assembly hall into a tractor pull arena, I say.
Wow.
Did they care?
I saw my very first TedCruz sticker on someone’s truck this afternoon. It wasn’t downtown but still in Austin. Coincidence? I think not! :). (Okay…. Maybe coincidence.)
No. It was seen as silly.
As someone who for 20 years was enmeshed in the health care system, I can’t believe that this is allowed anywhere.
Often there are only two or three competent neuro surgeons in a community who are well rested and ready to go out to do life saving surgery when someone is injured.
The idea that someone’s loved one could die because people take their protests to a needed highway exchange terrifies me. Communities should not allow this.
I don’t think they do. In Austin, the protestors on the bridge were asked to disperse and were eventually arrested. (Perhaps that should have happened a lot faster.)
The protestors do not care.
In many cases, that’s what they’re angling for. If they can get beaten or maced, so much the better, except they don’t actually like it when it happens. Better yet is to get dragged off and let the MSM photographers portray it to make them look like martyrs.
Hippies from the 1960s and early 70s still tell each other tales of getting teargassed at war protests. It helps build up their cred with their peers, so sometimes they exaggerate a bit.
I’ll bet the organizers are hoping that their useful idiot pawns get the stuffing kicked out of them. But being one of the maced and jailed pawns is probably not so pleasant.
If you look at the video showing the Austin protestors as they’re getting arrested on the bridge, they look like they are having a great time. There’s one girl who raises her fist in the air–resistance and all that–who looks so self satisfied that I am certain she views this act as the thing that gives her meaning. I’ve heard people talk before about how politics can be like religion to people, and getting arrested for that girl? It’s a kind of transcendence for her… a misguided act of cultism.
So… no. She wouldn’t mind if she was beat and kicked and stomped, (which is not how the police acted at all.)
She’d say thank you.