I don’t understand why leftist protests are always about punishing regular people and creating discomfort for others.
In all of the pro-Ukrainian events, protests, manifestations and activities that I’ve participated, we never tried to be a nuisance. We always make sure we aren’t in anybody’s way. We always clean up after ourselves. The events are positive in spirit. We never try to guilt or scare anybody. We always discuss in advance that the goal is to make passers-by feel better at the end of the event than before they came across it.
And it works. People don’t run away from us in fear because that’s a normal reaction to unhinged behavior. We don’t act unhinged, so we always get a lot of positive engagement. At the most recent event, people were flocking to us because they felt that something good was happening.
If the goal is to make people hate your cause, then you’d behave like these leftist protesters. Stopping the traffic, vandalizing works of art, attacking Christmas trees, scaring kids at the mall – isn’t it obvious that people are going to dislike you and whatever you stand for?
Nobody owes you anything. Nobody owes you attention, support, interest, time, or anything else. If people do decide to give what they don’t have to, you should be grateful. You should never lose the feeling of wonderment at how big their hearts are if they want to give when they don’t have to.
People who think it’s OK to get in the face of complete strangers and wreck their day have a totalitarian mentality. They have lost the capacity to understand that their biggest thing doesn’t have to matter to others because others have their own biggest thing. They can’t accept that nobody has to feel their pain.
Truly, you couldn’t hurt your cause any more than by doing this kind of infantile tantruming.
