[vkou]

Why not pick, say, the Boston Tea Party (And the war that followed) as a better example of an effective protest?

Highly illegal and immoral, destructive and violent, killed some five-digit number of press-ganged soldiers and civilians, met all of its political goals...

[BaronVonSteuben]

Oh absolutely. The reason the Boston Tea Party is celebrated is because their side won the war. Had the British won, it would have been one of the many wicked/evil "rebellions" against the King that got crushed.

But I'm not really seeing the connection here or why it invalidates the Unabomber example.

[vkou]

Unabomber is a worse example because while the ideas of his manifesto have taken root, he can't solely be credited for them, and his acolytes (both people pushing back on tech, and pundits screeching about woke politics ruining society) tend to condemn him (Again, because he wasn't the only person raising these ideas.)

The long and short of it is - just about any destructive, devious, and murderous form of protest is considered acceptable, as long as you can convince a large enough segment of society that it's end justifies the means.

It's circular logic, of course, but that's all there is to it. There are no involatile, unbreakable taboos when it comes to seeking political ends - you just have a harder time convincing some people that your cause is worthwhile, when you are using more extreme ones. And even if you win, you might still be condemned by history for your methods.

On the scale of extremes of methods, this thread's subject is notable, novel, interesting, but is more on the 'misdemeanour hooliganism' side of that spectrum.