An important lesson is being taught here:
Greenpeace Found Liable For $300 Million In Damages Over Dakota Access Protests—Risking Bankruptcy
A North Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace liable for defamation and other charges related to protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline, awarding a Texas-based pipeline company hundreds of millions in damages, according to multiple reports, a ruling the environmental advocacy group warned could result in “financial ruin” as it likely faces bankruptcy.
My impression is that Greenpeace is best described as a terrorist organization.
People need to learn that violence and vandalism are not considered free speech.
And it is interesting how a lighter pocketbook tends to effectively reinforce the idea that an associated behavior is unacceptable. Jail time for fanatics leads to a martyr complex whereas pinching the money without reducing other financial obligations (food, shelter & clothing) doesn’t usually lead to a lot of publicity and so does not nourish the idea that they are a martyr. Seems like a good way to extinguish the behaviors.
“Violence is not speech”
Since the Sixties so-called “sit-ins”, where people FORCIBLY took over the lives and effort (property) of others, disposing of the effort of others as they saw fit, to satisfy their own desires instead, everyone has been taught that non-consensual interaction IS “speech” (protest).
Today, this is a commonly accepted philosophy of human interaction (primarily, but not limited to, the Left). Until that moral philosophy is REJECTED by the VERY large swath of the population which currently accepts such non-consensual interaction as a supposed ‘right’ which they’re *righteously* practicing, this behavior is NOT going to go away. In fact, so long as it IS considered moral behavior, hits to the “pocketbook” are not going to stop them (any more than hits to the pocketbook is stopping Musk from practicing HIS morality).
While economic sanctions can hinder some of these people, economics doesn’t stop people from being what *they* consider to be “moral” – any more than economic sanctions would stop any one of us from preaching and practicing our morality.
Ultimately, it is the current moral philosophy in people’s minds and hearts which must be changed. People must be taught that the moral philosophy is WRONG, not that the practice of it will ‘hurt’ them. The near-universally accepted moral principle of self-sacrifice tells people that being ‘hurt’ while practicing one’s moral philosophy is a virtue. So that “hurt” will not change their minds. Instead, they will wear such ‘hurt’ as a badge of honor and use it to spur themselves on to even more fervent practice of their morality.
Thus education, not fear, is what is fundamentally needed to *change* the moral philosophy SO many today accept as valid – just as education, not fear, is what got people to accept that eviI moral philosophy in the first place.
And what needs to be taught is NOT that there is supposedly a ‘better’ way to achieve the Leftists’ moral goals. What needs to be taught is the eviI of treating the individual’s life and effort as one’s PROPERTY, to be disposed of as others see fit, to satisfy those other’s desires – the same way we teach it is eviI to RAP E (ie to treat a woman as a man’s sexual PROPERTY, to be disposed of as HE sees fit, to satisfy HIS desires). What needs to be taught is the FACT that – just like with RAP E – there is NEVER *any* justification to EVER treat another person as one’s CHATTEL.
What needs to be taught is that non-consensual human interaction is the DEFINITION of EVlL and *must* be STOPPED not treated as a moral VIRTUE.
THAT is the moral philosophy everyone needs to START teaching everyone else. Otherwise, we’re just squabbling over the ‘best’ way to dispose of ‘our’ human PROPERTY at the point of a government g UN.
A sit-in is at least peaceable, as opposed to smashing windows or setting the place on fire.
Also, on force…a large part of the problem was that (in many places) the law at the time forced everyone to segregate. It gets kind of complicated here, because you have the law & the culture & the counter-culture all on a collision course.
Sit-ins were invented by the UAW back in the 1930s.
$148 million against Rudy Giuliani for not only speech, but actual truth.
$800 million against Fox News for not only speech, but actual truth.
$965 million against Alex Jones for speech. (Completely stupid speech, but still.)
“Greenpeace Found Liable For $300 Million In Damages Over Dakota Access Protests—Risking Bankruptcy”
With whose money will they pay those fines?
With whose money was the organization funded so its members could commit the crimes that engendered the fines?
I understand Powerwagon’s point – “Jail time for fanatics leads to a martyr complex…” – but where is it written that both high fines and jail time cannot be administered? I have no problem with thoroughly impoverished martyrs, especially if the predicate to the jail time is a felony conviction.
And, while we’re on the topic, does “financing a terrorist organization” constitute conspiracy? That opens up a whole new batch of possible felony charges for a whole new batch of people, and goes well beyond just Greenpeace.
The French figured this out back in 1985.
Greenpiece (the green they are about isn’t the environment) is the Sein Finn to the Earth First / ALF provos. Dry up the Greenpiece money, and you dry up the funding for the ecoterrorists.
“War is just politics by other means.”
Violence in many instants is just a last act of thinking no one is listening to you. So, violence is speech in most instant. Just not consider that way in polite society. Nor should it be.
And I’m old enough to remember “Love canal”, and certain lakes and rivers that could burn from pollution. So, Greenpeace truly had something to say in its origin. And after watching the whole Covid debacle coupled with unfettered up and coming AI? New Philistine, OH.? We need as many watch dogs on business/government as we can get.
But in this day, violence is standard practice for losing communists. Even though it’s a very common human condition.
Personally, I could think of nothing more fun than making communist martyrs. And their problem would be that no one would be left to think of them as such, when I was done.
But alas, no one wants me as king.
But on a happy note we could always just deport them to sub-Saharan Africa.
In yesterday’s news report about this I saw that they are planning to appeal both in the US and in the Netherlands where they are headquartered. That’s bizarre — would a Dutch court assert appellate jurisdiction over a US court? If they have functioning brains they will reject that out of hand. We shall see.
What would be as bizarre is a U.S. court accepting any foreign appellate court assertion of powers.
After the installation of the “New Broom” in January, not on your life.
The left read Jack Donovan’s essay “Violence Is Golden” a long time ago…
and took it to heart.
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