The question is in the title. Article I found with more information
Edit: thanks for all the feedback.
Posted Jun 8, 2020, 9:10 AM UTC · edited
Id say its because the protesting is way larger in importance to a lot of the population, and itd be an extremely bad look for any leader to try and squash these protests themselves, plus I doubt people would listen anyways. Good thing ive seen is most people are wearing masks, but will still be sad to see an uptick in cases in a week :(
Edit: plus it's a lot easier to say "this church is closed" then closing protests
Do you not think it’s a bad look to keep churches closed while allowing thousands of people to flood the streets?
I dont think many people are worried with the issue for their to be a bad look or they are finding their own ways to worship until all this craziness blows over. I know a few churches near me are doing fine with streaming their service with online donations.
I get that I guess. If I can ask one more to you, what about other businesses? Should they be forced to remain closed?
Different areas are opening businesses of different types based on their judgment using the best data they have. Places of worship will likely be low on the list because they are not essential and their are reasonable alternatives.
Personally, I feel like they should really commit 100% to curbside business since every place ive seen thats "social distancing" is not going to be effective to stop the spread of of covid. They "should" remain closed in a public health sense, but I know the economy and people's savings can only last so long, and I don't remember hearing anything new about any relief, so places are rushing to reopen it seems, and i don't see it stopping unless we get some incredible wave of new deaths.
Thankfully I see a lot more masks, and honestly if like every place had a required mask for entry, id feel more confident with places and churches reopening.
The only way to protest effectively is to gather and be seen and heard. I won’t go because of the risk but I can understand why people who want to protest real, grave injustices in society would decide differently.
There are many ways to express ones faith and even if it might not be optimal one can temporarily change their religious practice in order to prevent themselves and their fellow congregants from becoming ill and in some cases dying.
But should the churches not be allowed to be open and for the congregation to decide if they wish to go or not?
No because of the negative externalities. We have a moral obligation to each other and quite frankly religious leaders should be the people who don’t need that explained to them.
So then why do we allow the protests? More people are protesting than could fit in most churches, synagogues, and mosques. If there are negative externalities so that we must keep these closed then why are we allowing protests?
To remind those in power of their moral obligations
Just to play devil's advocate, there are plenty of ways people can express their protest of police brutality without violating the social distancing mandates.
The way I see it is that various state and local leaders are just making a political decision to allow the protests to skirt the social distancing protections.
That's fine for them to do and they should continue it, but I don't think it's useful to suggest it isn't exactly what it is.
I fail to see how they can stop the protesters.
I mean it's obvious they aren't fine with it. But it's not easy to tell 40 million people to go away if they don't want to.
So if people just opened anyways the government wouldn’t stop them?
No. Because the government can do more to stores than it can to people.
First of all, there are far fewer businesses than people.
Remember too, I'm not saying the government doesn't want to stop individuals. I'm saying they don't have the ability to arrest all of them, and imprison them.
That’s my point, why can the government shut down services, both of these fall under the first amendment. Why are protests fine but church services not?
The government has the power to impose quarrantines.
But while it has the ability to police businesses, there's a reason civil disobedience is the biword for peaceful protests.
Protests aren't fine. They're not supposed to happen. But the average police department, even for a city as large as NYC doesn't have the ability to arrest 200,000 people in one day. Hell, they arrested 6,000 people in two days and they've close to maxed out their ability to hold prisoners. Next, try 6,000+ people on top of the normal arrests, and arrests for looting and vandalism.
You quickly run into a vastly overtaxed system. There just aren't enough courts, judges, prisons, or police.
That's not the case with businesses. Police show up, slap a lock on the door, and issue a fine. One person shows up in court.
This wouldn’t sound so stupid if the “blue spot” mayors and governors had sent police and national guard to pepperspray, mace, and beat church goers.
Police brutality against Americans in general, and against black men specifically, appears to be a pretty universal problem in America, based on the reaction of so many officers to peaceful protesters. This is a serious problem that impacts our ability as Americans to trust the structure and order of our government and its ability to keep us safe.
You can still have a fine relationship with God while temporarily being constrained from going to a house of worship, and being unable to do so temporarily is not going to impact anything negatively at all.
IB4L!
They arent. Law enforcement in those blue spots are putting a far larger and openly unlawful effort to put down and manage protests than they are governing worship services. The thing about protests is that when you protest when the government wants you to protest, it becomes a parade. My city is protesting. If I went to church, Id be at a far lower risk of coming in contact with law enforcement than if I kept going 10 miles farther to the protests.
Probably because you're consuming media sources that try to push that narrative to make their side feel under attack. It's much like that whole "war on christmas" narrative they were pushing awhile ago; making people feel under attack is a way to control them. So pushing the notion even when it's not true can be quite effective politically (and economically in terms of getting views/money).
Are you sure?
Have you tried getting a permit to protest? What should the consequences be for people spontaneously protesting without a permit that includes social distancing requirements for it not to be hypocritical in your eyes?
Are people trying to assemble for religious services anyway? What's happening to them, if so? Does religious service need to be allowed but accompanied by rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas in order for it not to be hypocritical in your eyes?
Could the methods that the police might use to stop either protests or church services factor into any of this?
I’m a libertarian, I don’t think the government should be able to just lock everything down at all. As for the protests, I really dislike the fact you need a permit to peacefully protest at all, why does the government get to decide if you use your first amendment or not? I really dislike the tyrannical cops shutting down peaceful protests. They should only be called in if it turns into riots, arson, or vandalism.
I’m a libertarian, I don’t think the government should be able to just lock everything down at all.
Yeah, I mean I assumed that from your flair. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking what you'd need to see in order for it not to be hypocritical. Your post was all about how hypocritical it is that governors and mayors tolerate protests but not religious assembly.
What could they do to make the way they tolerate religious assembly look like the way they've tolerated the protests, so that they can escape your charge of hypocrisy?
What could they do to make the way they tolerate protests look like the way they've tolerated religious assembly, so that they can escape your charge of hypocrisy?
Or is it possible that these aren't comparable? Are you maybe just hunting for a topic that lets you soapbox on the need to eliminate government from things like this?
why does the government get to decide if you use your first amendment or not?
Do you think it's useful for someone to help two groups trying to plan a protest at the same time and place? For instance, a protest and counter-protest, working out who's going to protest where, coordinating any sort of space buffer between the two, reserving time in the park, making sure there's no conflicts with a concert or anything else that might be using the public space? Do you think there's no value in closing down streets before a protest, or to ensure that business owners nearby know that it's coming so they can plan (maybe they'd want to release their employees early, or have them stay late to take advantage of the potential demand for their services)?
I can think of a million really good reasons why we'd want a permitting process for protests that don't look like suppressing someone's First Amendment rights.
In my community, at least, spontaneous protests that don't have time to go through the permitting process are explicitly legal, but still subject to emergency orders on assembly that apply equally to religious assembly.
Again, you're free to ignore those rules, and there are practical reasons why you can't respond to those who ignore the rules equivalently, aren't there?
If they didn’t want to be hypocrites there are two options. First being arrest every last one of the protestors and give them a fine like they do for businesses that open, second is just allow churches to open but ask that they abide by social distancing.
I know why we require permits, and I do see the need for them. I feel it gives the government the ability to decide what protests they allow us to use. I fear a tyranny that for examples say you cannot have a permit for a pro life protest and use the lack of a permit to arrest everyone and throw them in jail for a difference in political opinion. Now that has not and hopefully will not, but I dislike the government being able to determine that if you understand my worry.
First being arrest every last one of the protestors and give them a fine like they do for businesses that open
They go into businesses and arrest every person patronizing that business? Are you sure? Seems like that would have gotten more attention.
Or are they arresting business owners? What's the protest equivalent of that?
Do you see any logistical problems trying to arrest tens of thousands of people?
second is just allow churches to open but ask that they abide by social distancing.
Is this not happening anywhere?
https://www.wafb.com/2020/05/10/churches-begin-holding-services-again-with-social-distancing/
I fear a tyranny that for examples say you cannot have a permit for a pro life protest
If a city or state denied a protest permit based on content, SCOTUS would slap them down.
First being arrest every last one of the protestors and give them a fine
And just how are they going to enforce that?
"Here's your ticket (x1,000,000 people)". All of them throw the ticket away right in front of the cop.
Now, legally he can arrest them for that. But how is he going to arrest 1,000,000 people? How is he going to guard them while they're under arrest? How long will the courts have to spend to try all of them? Are there even enough lawyers?
Even at one an hour for 8 hours, you're looking at 125,000 days in court. With five courts running, that's still 25,000 days, and you'll need 120 million people to form the jury pools.
I also want to point out that we discussed this several hours before you made this reply. What this guy said isn't new information for you.
Protests are civil disobedience. They're breaking rules. That's kinda the point. You could of course stage a protest at your own church though I imagine it would be difficult to perform any rites with riot cops on your ass.
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Girl what?
You should try to turn away from Breitbart occasionally, if only so that you can take a breath or something.
The analysis is a bit grim but economists *(and epidemiologists) tend to say that the protests are a good thing from a utilitarian perspective, all things considered. While the protests will spread the virus and cause thousands of deaths, reforms that reduce police violence would save lives.
I think it's strange that you didn't consider any potential positive outcomes of the protests in your comment and just said they need to be suppressed.
As of June 3, Mapping Police Violence had counted 28 unarmed blacks and 51 unarmed whites who died at the hands of police in 2019.
You aren’t talking about a number of deaths that even comes close to the carnage from these protests.
Those numbers are suspicious at best. There were like a thousand police interactions that ended in death. Did Philando Castile count as unarmed?
You’re muddying the waters. I’m not obligated to fit statistics to your intuition. And something not fitting your intuition isn’t suspicious. In the time you spent making this comment you could have googled the source that’s literally quoted in the ONE SENTENCE excerpt.
reforms would affect more than just the lives of unarmed people killed by the police
Police kill ~1100 people per year https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends
This set of policies supposedly reduces police killings by 72% https://8cantwait.org/
Taking a utilitarian perspective means considering the fact that those killed by the police would have been expected to live much longer than those killed by COVID.
Reducing police violence would have further effects by improving relations with communities that are distrustful of the police.
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How many millions are living in fear, that won't have to if reforms are put into place?
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Are we really going to keep asking this question in a slightly different way 20 times a day? This has basically been answered before.