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[Max White]

Pulling a fire alarm may have been disruptive but it was, after all, a protest and not a friendly debate.

The very essence, the core, the heart and soul of protest and why we protect it is about freedom of speech. The right to say what you believe. Even if it is offensive, even if it is morally reprehensible, you get the right to say it.
When that fire alarm went off and those 'feminists' (And I hate to use such a word to describe this group of people) started cheering, they deliberately cut short that meeting, denying somebody elses right to free speech.

If they would deny another their rights, what claim do they have to their own? How can we call this an honest protest rather than fear mongering?

[Hanslanda]

They drove her to suicide. they should all be tortured in the most painful and disturbing ways possible and then slowly killed, preferably by slow mutilation and evisceration, beginning at the feet.

Those four were not the only people who drove her to kill herself, yet you would do worse to them and to yourself by disregarding justice in favour of petty revenge.
You lot go uphold your warrior code and torture and execute whoever you feel deserves it, I'm out.

This. Justice is not revenge. Revenge doesn't do you ANY GOOD AT ALL. It really doesn't. Revenge leads to more revenge, then you're just in a vicious cycle of hateful people murdering each other for murdering each other. You have to break the cycle, decide to be the better person, and fucking forgive the other person for their crimes sometimes. That doesn't mean 'don't punish them in accordance with the law', it means you go, "Listen, you did a horrible thing, and I should hate you for it. But I just want the hate to end, because that horrible thing happened because of hate, and I won't be a party to the continuation of this travesty. I am forgiving you now, I am saying that I feel sorry for you, and I wish I could help you. It's the right thing to do, and though I may not want to do it, I am going to, because it is the only way to make this world a better place."

Taking revenge is the sign of a weak person. People always seem to forget that the people who murder and rape and destroy are actually... People too. How would you feel in their shoes? And don't get self-righteous and say, "I would NEVER do something like that!" because that's not what I asked. I asked, 'How would you feel in their shoes?' You would want help, and understanding. I can say, as someone who is on the receiving end of punishment from the Justice Department, that what you think about criminals is wrong. Flat out wrong. They are people, with mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and children and siblings and friends who love them. They are not some subhuman cast of monstrous creatures that exist solely to cause mayhem. They are people that make mistakes greater than the norm.

Anyways, I guess I'll get down from my soapbox now, after I provide one example for you that I feel proves my point rather poignantly. Linda rule was murdered by Gary Ridgeway, a serial killer. At his trial, family members of the victims got on the stand and damned him, wished him cruel and painful deaths, and told him he was going to hell. And then the father of Linda Rule stood up to speak.

[Max White]

And then the father of Linda Rule stood up to speak.

That was actually beautiful. Thank you for sharing Hans...

[Glowcat]

The problem is that it just makes the feminism movement look bad, when doing any kind of protest you always want to make yourself look like the victim. This makes people who were on the edge of supporting you want to join you as they see you as the right side, however when you do stuff like this it does not help your cause in the slightest. The only people who are going to be impressed or happy that this happened supported the movement already and the people who were on the edge will be driven away from you as it seems like you are the aggressor in the situation. 

You can actually see the effect of this in this thread itself

From an objectives standpoint this is noted. But that would be a criticism on their method and not the morality.

Criticizing methods are fine if those criticisms are actually fair. Pulling a fire alarm may have been disruptive but it was, after all, a protest and not a friendly debate.

You drag your cause down when you waste emergency services' time and instead of having a friendly debate you bully your opponents into silence. There is no getting clearer than that.

They already know the people they're arguing with and are rightfully angry about some of the things they've said/done in the past. If the group in question dedicates itself to undermining equality by focusing on attacking feminism and blaming feminism for things it isn't responsible for, rather than overcoming sexism directed against men, then it's a hate group, and at that point they really don't owe the MIA group anything... at all. They find themselves personally threatened and it's not an attack on free speech when they protest against that.

I don't see how you can justify an attack on free speech with anger. Where do you draw the line of who gets to silence who because of what they've said/done in the past? Gender? Race? Religion? Social class?
Free speech is an inalienable right. And at the very least when protesting, act like a decent human being. Every protest group worth its weight knows this.

Protesting another group is not an attack on free speech. I'm not sure why this has become the rallying cry of certain anti-feminist groups but they seem to all hold some serious misunderstandings about the term which cheapens it greatly. An attack on free speech would necessitate government intervention or special rights that prevented the one pulling the fire alarm from being punished equally under the law. Protesting the presence of something that attacks you? THAT IS FREE SPEECH. An oppressed group is especially not going to be nice to another who makes it their mission to be oppressed and it speaks to your own privilege that you'd expect them to operate under the same veneer of civility which allows them to be denigrated without the right to get properly angry about it.

[Max White]

Pulling a fire alarm isn't a form of protest.
Making signs and pulling out a megaphone, that is protesting, but deliberately stopping a peaceful meeting isn't a protest.

[Hanslanda]

And then the father of Linda Rule stood up to speak.

That was actually beautiful. Thank you for sharing Hans...

That guy is one of my rolemodels, and all I know about him is that little ten second blurb of his life.

[Loud Whispers]

Protesting another group is not an attack on free speech. I'm not sure why this has become the rallying cry of certain anti-feminist groups but they seem to all hold some serious misunderstandings about the term which cheapens it greatly. An attack on free speech would necessitate government intervention or special rights that prevented the one pulling the fire alarm from being punished equally under the law. Protesting the presence of something that attacks you? THAT IS FREE SPEECH.

What they did by holding that picket outside the seminar was protest. What they did by prohibiting them from speaking was by definition bullying them into silence, they were forced to terminate discussion. That is in all definitions an attack of free speech.

An oppressed group is especially not going to be nice to another who makes it their mission to be oppressed and it speaks to your own privilege that you'd expect them to operate under the same veneer of civility which allows them to be denigrated without the right to get properly angry about it.

I can't take you seriously. I am privileged to expect people to be able to act in a civil manner?

Right.

And so Martin Luther King stood on the podium and said; I have a dream, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME READ MY LIST.

[Glowcat]

Pulling a fire alarm isn't a form of protest.
Making signs and pulling out a megaphone, that is protesting, but deliberately stopping a peaceful meeting isn't a protest.

...How is a disruptive protest no longer a protest? There have been plenty of protests that interfered with the running of business in violent and non-violent ways. If the feminist group was actually VIOLENT then I might be more sympathetic to your view, but a non-violent protest against a hate group isn't something that I feel deserves even a healthy dosage of snark.

And so Martin Luther King stood on the podium and said; I have a dream, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME READ MY LIST.

Have you ever read his letter from the birmingham jail or other efforts of civil disobedience? Maybe not in those words but... FUCK YES.

Expecting people to react in a civil manner to hate speech that doesn't effect you is what makes you privileged. And you continue to ignore that the very debate itself begins in uncivil terms towards the feminists involved.

[Max White]

A business isn't covered by freedom of speech, a mens rights meeting is.
If a feminist burnt a painting that they thought was offensive as a means of protest, or destroyed all copies of a book that promoted anti-feminist ideals, it would be the same thing. It isn't protest, it is suppression of freedom of speech.

[Loud Whispers]

Expecting people to react in a civil manner to hate speech that doesn't effect you is what makes you privileged. And you continue to ignore that the very debate itself begins in uncivil terms towards the feminists involved.

Thank you very much for assuming my life story for me.

Here's a fun thing: I react in a civil manner to hate speech that effects me.

Now do explain why outrage justifies bully tactics for me.

[SalmonGod]

I wish that after so many days of bashing an unconscious enemy in the head without accomplishing anything, that dwarves would be smart enough to take its helmet off.

Oh now a child has decided to join in the pummeling.  Look mommy!  I'm punching his helmet too!  I'm a big dwarf aren't I!


@Hans's speech:  I like to put it this way.  Violence is not a bad guy.  It's an act.  You can't kill it.  You can only stop doing it.

Triple Edit!:  And I just realized the irony of saying that as an add-on to a post about a whole family savagely beating a monster in the face for days on end

[Glowcat]

Expecting people to react in a civil manner to hate speech that doesn't effect you is what makes you privileged. And you continue to ignore that the very debate itself begins in uncivil terms towards the feminists involved.

Thank you very much for assuming my life story for me.

Here's a fun thing: I react in a civil manner to hate speech that effects me.

Now do explain why outrage justifies bully tactics for me.

Assuming your life story? I'm pretty sure the only assumption I'm making, that you're not a feminist or negatively effected by MRA rhetoric, is self-apparent at this point. You place an inherit value on civility without regard to whether such is reasonable or unreasonable in context. If you believe that what this group did is uncivil and unreasonable then that is your prerogative, though I find your own opposition to itself be unreasonable. I see no merit in your accusation of bullying either. It's clear that due to how the University continues letting the MIA host meetings and such that this group has no actual power to be a bully in a meaningful sense. Thus the angry reaction to the meeting. Their "bullying" amounts to being snappish and disrupting a meeting on university grounds. I mean, sure it's not the best way to go about protesting probably, but it's hardly as bad as you're making it out to be and if the ones pulling the alarm were willing to suffer the penalty for it their actions fall under a precedent of civil disobedience.

A business isn't covered by freedom of speech, a mens rights meeting is.
If a feminist burnt a painting that they thought was offensive as a means of protest, or destroyed all copies of a book that promoted anti-feminist ideals, it would be the same thing. It isn't protest, it is suppression of freedom of speech.

Holding a MRA meeting on university grounds is guaranteed by free speech laws? I think you're setting the bar for infringement on free speech way too low here. The meeting existed independently of the location which they held it on.

[Xantalos]

It wasn't the MRA that was having a meeting, though.

[Glowcat]

It wasn't the MRA that was having a meeting, though.

The MIA have shown ties to MRA sites such as A Voice For Men and invited speakers who give MRA talking points, not to mention using those talking points in one of the videos, so... I'm going to have to disagree on that.

[Xantalos]

It wasn't the MRA that was having a meeting, though.

The MIA have shown ties to MRA sites such as A Voice For Men and invited speakers who give MRA talking points, not to mention using those talking points in one of the videos, so... I'm going to have to disagree on that.

Apparently they were Equality Canada:
http://equalitycanada.com/