The only way to end protests which stop traffic is to not stop traffic for protesters.

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The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal came up with an absolutely brilliant idea, but one which will not work:

Tort Law vs. the Anti-Israel Protesters

If DAs won’t prosecute, victims can sue for false imprisonment.

By The Editorial Board | Thursday, December 28, 2023 | 6:49 PM EST

Idiots block traffic near LAX to demand Gaza ceasefire.

Normally we wouldn’t wish trial lawyers on our worst enemy. But as anti-Israel demonstrations grow increasingly lawless, the plaintiffs bar could help. Why not hit protesters who break the law and keep Americans from getting to their destination with a tort liability suit for false imprisonment?

On Wednesday anti-Israel protesters blocked access to JFK and LAX airports in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. The laws of New York and California, like most states, recognize the tort. While there is no precedent applying this tort to road-blocking protesters, it fits the offense. The purpose of these demonstrations is to block the road to keep people from getting to the airport — deliberately and against their will.

I suppose that the 532 words the Editorial Board wasted on this article didn’t take that long to write, but it’s wholly misguided. If the protesters were the Wall Street types the editors of the Journal know, it might be a decent idea, but the protesters are almost entirely baristas, unemployed videogame players living in their parents’ basements, seven people stacked into a two-bedroom fifth-floor walkup on 96th Street, and girls showing their tits on TikTok. The website Stop Anti-Semitism and its Twitter site have done a great job exposing the professionals who support Hamas, but that exposure has gotten many of them fired. These idiots can be sued, certainly enough, but what can anyone hope to win more than 55¢?

Further down:

In the absence of real criminal penalties, the protesters’ escalating resort to lawlessness calls for some creative class actions. Tort actions would hit the lawbreakers in their pocketbooks, even if district attorneys like New York’s Alvin Bragg won’t prosecute them.

When their pocketbooks are empty, you can’t hit them very hard, can you?

Those protesting in support of the uncivilized are very much dependent upon most Americans being civilized, on drivers putting on the brakes when they see some idiots standing in the middle of the road. The protesters are breaking civilized norms while depending upon others adhering to them, but let’s face it: the only way to end protests which stop traffic is to not stop traffic for protesters.

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One thought on “The only way to end protests which stop traffic is to not stop traffic for protesters.”

  1. Passage on public thoroughfare is one of the ancient rights of Englishmen, to the point where it is a recognized point of common law that if you make the mistake of allowing people to cut across your property to the point they have worn a path by their passage, and then you block it off, they can sue you to unblock it. Corrupt judges and prosecutors with strange foreign cultures might fail to recognize your right to treat road-blocking protesters as highwaymen and summarily shoot them dead, but it would be a gross miscarriage of justice if they were to prosecute an unhyphenated American for that. Indeed, our hesitation to do so is a sign that we know in our hearts that we are a conquered and subjugated people, and that the weird alien peoples running our courts would not respect our rights.

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