dubfan

That's fair. It seems police forces across the US have learned to be less confrontational against protestors, and in general this has been a good thing.

I've expressed this in a sub-optimal manner, but I'm concerned about what I see as an erosion in the degree to which we give police officers discretion about how to do their jobs in the name of what amounts to a political ideology. I'm also concerned about what I see as a mentality of fear and distrust against authority (of all types, not just law enforcement), and the tendency to act on this fear rather than trying to ensure that those who have authority have it for the right reasons.

> Freedom isn't the ability "to do" something or anything, it is simply the absence of coercion.

A profound point apparently lost on so-called intellectuals. Thank you for understanding.

Yeah, being late to my job because my bus can't get through a protest and getting fired as a result is just a slight inconvenience.

They have as much of a right to speak as I have to ignore them. When my right to ignore them is taken away, I have a problem with that.

The protestors are using fear (the fear of being attacked by police) to achieve a political goal (somewhat murky but the general gist seems to be to accelerate the depolicing of cities).

The protests went further than just shutting down the freeways, at least in my city. Here they blocked a transit tunnel that moves commuters through downtown, forcing the buses to use crowded surface streets and completely disabling the light rail.

> The social pendulum in the U.S. has swung far too far towards an authoritarian police state.

My view is it's gone the opposite direction. We've neutered our police forces such that they can't even protect the rights of citizens to go about their business without being impeded by anti-authoritarian protestors, and we've accepted that as a fact of life. If this country didn't have the inertia of having the world's reserve currency and the largest industrial capacity for a crucial ~50-60 year period, nobody would invest in us given our social unrest.

That's disappointing. I come to HN to get away from political discussions.

The right to peaceably assemble shouldn't supersede the right for citizens to go about their business. The protests crossed that line when they started shutting down freeways and transit. The only difference between that and terrorism is the rhetoric.

> If your valuation rises, you might be forced to move by taxes. If it drops, you lose services and the place starts to get grubby.

Or, if you live in SF, Seattle or Portland, your taxes go up but you still get poor quality services and everything is still grubby.

I place "The World According To Monsanto" in the same league as "Zeitgeist" and "Loose Change". Great if you want affirmation of your worldview, pretty underwhelming if you're interested in facts.

The first GM crop to be licensed for human consumption in the US was the Flavr Savr tomato, which contained a trait that improved their shelf life and appearance. It was a commercial flop and taken off the shelves after a few years on the market.