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Notes -
To be clear, I am not. Especially not as a legal matter. As a public perception matter, their justification shows immense hypocrisy.
Completely separate from that is the legal matter of "serious violence", which is horribly ill-supported in this document, to the crazy extent of stochastic pre-crime.
Well you said that hypocrisy arises from the fact that the courts accepted economic damage as a (secondary) justification for allowing the government to break up the protests, but allowed lockdowns to go ahead despite the economic damage they caused; this is only hypocrisy if one thinks that the government taking action to prevent economic damage is an analogous case to taking an action to remedy another ill which unfortunately entailed economic damage, which is silly.
I think I explained poorly. Consider the statement, "Agent A takes Action B to remedy Ill C, potentially also causing Effect D."
In one case, A = Government, B = Lockdown, C = COVID, D = Economic Damage.
In a second case, A = Protesters, B = Protest, C = Economic Damage, D = Lesser Economic Damage.
In a third case, A = Government, B = Declaration of Emergency, C = Lesser Economic Damage, D = Degradation of Civil Liberties.
The side effect of the second case is absolutely de minimis compared to the side effects of the first and third, yet the minimal side effect coming out of the second case is meant to justify a vastly worse thing in the third case. The requirement is that the former/latter cases must be acknowledged as Righteous and Good, while the middle case must be condemned as Hitler and Satan and Racist and....
One can reasonable agree/disagree between the first two based on the relative understanding of the situation, particularly the severity of COVID. But to take the required stances on the first two and then claim that the latter is Righteous and Good is hypocrisy. If such small amounts of economic damage are that important to declare an emergency and suspend civil liberties, then perhaps much worse economic damage is a sufficient impetus to make a little bit of protesting not Hitler and Satan and Racist and....
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