Prerequisite for protest

Unhindered passage on Sofia's roads is important. However, isn't expedited passage through Terminal 1 more important?

We have a situation... People are protesting against the government, which is preventing other people from using certain common areas - specifically roads.

The complaints were not long in coming – amplified by the politicians' megaphones: You're hindering the people, you're hindering the entire country, you're rocking our boat.

At first glance, the claim of some citizens and most politicians seems reasonable. Indeed, during the protests we have a situation of:

1. Restriction of individual rights – driving your private car on a given road

2. Claim for special use of common "property" - protesters want to close a road to express their outrage at the authorities.

But before we denounce the protesters as ordinary violators - as GERB immediately rushed to do - we need to make the reasoning a little more specific in order to understand some of the details and specifics of the situation.

Who exactly is protesting, how exactly are they protesting, and what exactly are they protesting for?

What is the basic premise behind the conflict, and can it be challenged?

The situation in Bulgaria is conflictual. We obviously have a clash between:

• Democratically elected rulers

• Established rights and rules for citizens within common areas

• Protesting in defense of certain civil rights and interests by blocking certain public areas

This conflict, according to some people, necessitates a compromise. An unsatisfactory compromise. The government should be tolerated until elections are held.

Besides, then everyone would express an opinion.

Before that, it was not right to interfere.

This compromise, at least for me, is false or at least quite unsatisfactory:

• First, because voting in elections is not the only way to express your civic position on political processes. If you are energetic and adequate, you can do it in a variety of ways.

• Secondly, because in Bulgaria, especially the parliamentary elections, are in practice both manipulated and offer increasingly poor alternatives. For me, this leads to a situation where for the intelligent Bulgarian citizen, political choice within the framework of the standard democratic process currently does not exist.

• Third, most importantly, because we are not in a market situation, but in a political one, that is, the dissatisfied paradoxically continue to pay the causes of the dissatisfaction - every Bulgarian citizen pays taxes, and Boyko Borisov and his people dispose of the money from them.

Therefore, a compromise in the sense of silently waiting until the elections, regardless of what politicians do, is not acceptable.

To analyze the situation more clearly, we need to unravel the underlying assumptions at the root of the conflict.

There are two of them.

What does common area/property mean in practice and what is actually being protested about?

The first assumption is that once a given area is common property, then:

1. We all have equal rights over it.
2. Therefore, none of us have specifically defined rights over it.
3. Which requires giving illegitimate special rights to a certain group of people – politicians – to set rules for the use and behavior of the common area.
4. And because it is illegitimate to exercise special rights, first of all these rules must be formulated in extremely general terms, and secondly it is extremely debatable that they are legitimate at all. They are simply the only rules we have at the moment.
5. That is why it is important that all such rules are extremely general for everyone. That is, those that concern only the general purpose of the objects of common ownership - in the case under discussion, the roads in Bulgaria should be used only for movement by vehicles, not for protests.

Rather, we, civilized people, follow rules within common areas, with the idea of respecting proven individual rights. For example, we drive carefully, because it is absolutely unacceptable to smash up other people's private cars and take other people's lives.

Therefore, the premise regarding common area/property is not related to political regulations, but to the well-being of citizens – we don't want to interfere with each other by meeting somewhere on the roads.

However, this well-being of citizens can be threatened in many ways - material, but also intangible, moral:

• On the one hand, the well-being of citizens can be threatened by blocking roads and hindering movement.

• On the other hand, however, the well-being of citizens can be threatened by rampant people who use brute /political/ force to oppress citizens.

And here it is very useful to turn to David Friedman, who reminds us of a fundamental fact for the human world:

"There are always constraints within which we try to achieve something objectively valuable. However, these constraints may be irrelevant and we may ignore them if we are in circumstances where we would objectively be better off ignoring them."

That is, the premise that protesters should under no circumstances express special claims on common areas and should never interfere with their protest does not always seem to be absolutely valid.

If we assume that these claims are related to adequate indignation at irregularities on the political scene, we can define them as acts of self-defense. Citizens believe that politicians are not only taking their money by force, but are doing so only to benefit themselves unfairly, committing the most robber-like outrages – from which citizens are trying to protect themselves.

And we might even be able to define the actions of the protesters as protecting other citizens.

Let's see...

What do the protesters actually want?

In the context of the fact described by Friedman about the human world, we could also assume another premise: that we are in a situation that involves ignoring some restrictions and rules in the name of something more valuable to more countries.

Thus, we can formulate a new premise for the situation, overturning and eliminating the conflict.

According to thinker Eliyahu Goldrat, this approach can often bring us a breakthrough, greater value, or as he puts it, "a bigger piece of the pie."

The new premise is that the well-being of citizens is currently much more threatened by the crimes of politicians than by the more complicated movement around Sofia.

The corruption scandals, the safes with bundles, gold and weapons next to the prime minister's bed, the series of extremely controversial laws and regulations, the ridiculous economic measures, the wars between institutions actually disturb and embitter the lives of all Bulgarians.

Moreover, the protesters are directly addressing these threats to Bulgarians, and are not asking for something specific that is beneficial to them.

That is, we can also make the assumption that, in addition to self-defense, the protesters are aiming for some great benefits for everyone.

Some kind of protection for the whole society.

Let me remind you that taxi drivers and hoteliers also raised their voices. But their motives were completely different. The former also prevented the use of streets, and both groups, since their protests were successful, prevented a mass of Bulgarians from earning extra money and using a modern service – from UBER and Airbnb, respectively.

At that time, I don't think that so many Bulgarians were so enraged that the protests were bothering them and disturbing them - even though they were entirely and openly defending only special business interests.

ГЕРБ обаче яко се трогнаха от протестите и защитиха и таксиджи и хотелиери – в ущърб на UBER, Airbnb и маса български граждани, извличащи ползи от платформите.

Now it seems that those in power are adopting a more convenient position - namely that protests cannot determine the governance of the state and hinder citizens.

It seems like the situation is "wherever there's a need for us, there we are."

And in fact, the main premise in this case is:

1. Mostly normal, intelligent and modern-minded citizens are protesting,

2. who do not pursue any special private interests /especially considering the fact that the majority are young, educated, successful and living abroad, having almost returned to Bulgaria/,

3. and react in an expression of outrage at the government and in search of a fundamental solution that would bring general improvement for everyone.

At least that is the stated goal of the protest.

People are protesting against the criminal political class that has occupied Bulgaria for at least the last 20 years.

People want to demonstrate to this class that whoever messes up gets away with it.

And they decided to start the demonstration with Boyko Borisov. And it is Boyko Borisov who has recently accumulated a lot of anger against himself and has started to spill the beans with gaffes.

And now it's time for something very important:

In many situations, when you eliminate the underlying conditions of the conflict, as I have tried to do now, the path to a much better and fundamental change for all parties opens up.

It is obvious that if the protest with these messages succeeds and if at least the political class in our country already has one thing in mind, the cake for all Bulgarians may grow at least a little bigger.

At the very least, startling the political class would be helpful.

Just so they're a little more alert.

It seems to me that they've started taking themselves very seriously lately.

If constructive talks are provoked about a fundamental change in the system in the direction of drastically reducing the element of political power, the cake could become seriously larger.

That is, we can become richer, have higher profits and salaries, be less bothered by taxes, regulations, bureaucracy, and corruption, and those in the state can have one thing in mind.

And the best thing would be to open a conversation about a general change in the structure, in which the economy becomes increasingly free, and the state increasingly resembles an agency for providing social services.

To illustrate the logic of the development of this situation, let's take an example given by David Friedman.

Imagine you're in a busy pedestrian zone. It's full of people, the restaurants are open (forget about Covid for a moment), and the city is buzzing with excitement.

Suddenly, a madman appears, starts screaming and threatening. And to everyone's horror, he brandishes a knife. At any moment, someone innocent will be stabbed.

You are also under threat.

Suddenly you realize that the owner of the nearby establishment has a rifle. The owner has expressly forbidden anyone from touching his rifle.

However, he is not there at the moment, the staff is shocked and does nothing, the psychopath's massacre will soon begin. Maybe from the shocked kid 3 meters away from him.

You have 2 choices:

• Sneak into the establishment while the psychopath isn't looking, grab the shotgun, and use it to neutralize him.

• Stick to respecting the owner's rules, do nothing, and watch how many people get slaughtered until the psychopath has had enough or until the police arrive.

Of course, any normal person would break the rules in this situation. Although it is not entirely clear and certain what exactly will happen, you, as a normal person, would probably try to take the rifle unnoticed.

And shoot the psychopath-criminal.

Would that be wrong and immoral?

No – and for at least 3 reasons that undermine the premise described by the judgment that it is right not to touch the rifle because its owner said so:

• In practice, you are not performing the action Stealing a Rifle, but Saving Lives. In principle, you have no ulterior motives or intentions towards the restaurateur's rifle. Under other circumstances, it would not even occur to you to take it. But saving, perhaps, 8, 9, or 10 lives is clearly more valuable than violating the owner's regulations, and for a limited period of time.

• And the owner himself probably approves of your actions. He probably doesn't really want people to get stabbed just to keep his gun out of reach. Also, imagine that he's there with his family, but he's in a position where he can't reach the gun. Then not only can you do what he wants, but you might even save his life and the lives of his family.

• Which is an unimaginably greater profit compared to the order not to touch the rifle being obeyed. In addition, the profit can increase even more as a result of, for example, I'm giving a very general and elementary example, the gathering of many people at the scene of the incident who decide to sit in the establishment, an opportunity for the owner to offer a beer to calm the passions, which presents him in a better light, a reward for you as the hero of the day, etc.

In some situations – not so extreme, however – the compensation of the owner may be even more direct and expressed in direct monetary compensation. Many examples could be given, but for now the most elementary to explain seems to me to be the scene from some old cowboy movies, in which the good cowboy sees that things are heading towards a fight with the hooligans in the bar – who are also threatening the bar staff –, pays for the future damages in advance and the melee begins.

Of course, this is a simple example.

However, the underlying logic is important.

Why is it important and why do I describe it in such detail?

Because those appear like "But they are legitimately elected rulers, you are interfering with the people, there will be elections, well, whatever, this is the state, the system, and it can't be better, and there is no one else to come."

Nonsense. First of all, it's always useful to react to irregularities, and secondly...

Many people do not read, do not think deeply, lack imagination and education, and therefore cannot imagine the alternatives.

But they vote and then we all eat their pumpkin pie in the government.

However, smart people are at least trying to imagine more constructive alternatives.

And geniuses are already imagining fundamental alternatives.

And in the name of alternatives, sometimes you have to be more blunt and accept that a certain inconvenience must be experienced for the sake of more important values. How we assess these situations depends on our level of intelligence, but we are not immune from falling into them.

Specifically for the protesters, 2 small facts show that the described scenario applies to them, that is, that they are fighting for something valuable and that they are adequate enough to react to the situation:

• They defended the mothers of children with disabilities in the clash with the police. How much and what exactly the mothers involved in the case are right is another topic that I will not comment on at the moment. The important fact is that apparently at least most of the protesters are moral people who, from a pure heart, immediately reacted in defense of these women.

• Regardless of the protests, when an ambulance appears, the protesters warn each other and politely let it pass. I saw this firsthand when I went to their tents. That is, they have no clear intention of simply disturbing public order.

And if we add to this the facts that the protest does not support any of the opposition parties and that it demands specific changes, related more to moral issues, we can conclude that we are more likely in the scenario described by Friedman.

The protesters want to react against the dangerous violator of civilization and morality – the criminal state power– by creating temporary and minor inconveniences for some Bulgarians in an attempt to protect more essential values.

Because you will agree that not being able to drive somewhere for a few months is nothing compared to the fact that the lives of several generations of Bulgarians cannot get anywhere.

Or it could go mostly through Terminal 1.

The post is reprinted from the author's blog.