Why it’s stupid to protest in the highway.

Because eventually the people who do become the miserable [expletive deleted] who do this to people:

A beloved 83-year-old West Bridgewater grandfather has been left with spinal fractures and broken ribs after his ambulance had to be diverted around this morning’s protest on I-93, his daughter said, describing herself as “livid.”

“I understand your plight, but it’s moronic to put other people’s lives and public safety in jeopardy,” said Nadine McGrath, daughter of Richard McGrath. “I’m just so angry. I’m livid. You’re protesting police brutality and people losing their lives but you’re willing to take other people’s lives to prove a point? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

Now, I want to make sure that my point is very, very clear, because after all I am trying to explain things to people who think that it’s smart to play in traffic.  So here we go: society values beloved grandfathers over Lefty protesters.  So when it’s a choice between an example of the former needing to be rushed to the hospital after a horrible car accident, and examples of the latter risking horrible car accidents, society’s default sympathy is going to be with the grandfather.  And this is not casual, either: the EMTs could have gotten out of the ambulance this morning and cleared a path with their defibrillators and society would have nodded solemnly and murmured It’s a shame that it had to come to that.

Because we like grandfathers. Professional agitators?  Yeah, not so much.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Please tell me that nobody will be shocked to hear that the protesters were, of course, largely a bunch of white people:

Protestors with arms chained together inside barrel on Rte 83 Milton pic.twitter.com/ORaUqQ7les

— Tim Alben (@TimAlben) January 15, 2015

White people with no jobs: “Several of the protesters were found to be wearing adult diapers, state police said, adding “their plan, obviously, was to stay on the highway for a long time.””