[tempguy9999]

> What is your process for determining whether or not a protest you read about is peaceful, fastidiously civic-minded, or if it is just a bunch of hooligans who want to break windows?

Whether they smash windows and vandalise, or not.

[vkou]

1. How do you know that is actually done by the protestors, or some unaffiliated hooligans?

2. How do you know that the news coverage of the event will accurately make a distinction between the two? My experience with this is that the distinction that is made is always conveniently aligned with the political leanings of the news source.

Postulate: Maybe the 'peaceful' versus 'non-peaceful' demonstrations isn't actually a relevant dimension - and is a distraction, used to condemn some protests (that you politically oppose) as illegitimate, and to endorse others, as legitimate?

Every demonstration is going to have a few vandals and hooligans, either planted, embedded, or just standing on the sidelines. I postulate that it doesn't alter the legitimacy of their grievances.

[IAmEveryone]

Or, you know, throwing tea into a harbour.

[tempguy9999]

I'm not up on US history really, but tea was expensive at the time and it was other people's tea being destroyed, so that might well be vandalism. Happy to be corrected though.