If you live in a society that lives under mass surveilance, it is not a free society. You’re not making me think you know what protesting is. You’re describing petition, and you’re really making it sound like maybe you have access to the kinds of privilege that are hard to imagine within an overall hierarchical society. It sounds like you don’t want countries your nations companies profit from to rise up in rejection of the fossil fuel profiteering that gives you access to these things. Please realize the “free society” you live in is the same tortured society the rest of us are trying to dismantle that you’re saying don’t have enough freedom to qualify for your masks off argument.
Which is to say nothing about that this whole discussion has pulled us off the original accessibility concern immunocomprimised people experience. Your masks off argument would see these people stripped of access to the right to petition that you hold dear. When I think about it it genuinely makes me angry just how dismissive of what everyone else is saying. We’re telling you about a REAL and present threat and your response is just to say if we lived in a free society we wouldn’t have to fight for our rights. We know! We know that! That’s why we fight. But what’s frustrating is that your society isn’t as free as you’re saying. You live in a country with active neo Nazi and white supremacist factions. What are you going to do if they gain access to that mass surveilance mechanism. How are you going to tell them you don’t want the descendants of slaves in your country to get lynched? You gonna ask politely?
We have had those environmental glue protests here, while I dislike their methods, I have never seen them try and hide their identities, I do respect that, that tells me that they actually are believing in what they do, and not just using the cause a way to cause destruction.
So far, I can’t remember any of their protests devolving into rioting or violence, at least not from their side.
In my experience neo nazis are way more prone to mask in their protests than other groups.
