This might be about the message not the messenger. I don’t care about his mental state or anything else about the dude, just the big signs hanging off the bridge. It’s the medias job to make a big deal out of the person and not what they are saying I guess.

R0bert I thought here there was no choice regarding receiving child support? But yeah what a stupid messy system and it’s tipped another person over the edge.

Jewely the choice part get's difficult if you are reliant on various parenting benefits for your income.

As I understand it other payments get reduced if you are not collecting child support.

R0bert

He is a citizen, he is a non-custodial parent, that means he has the rights of any other Australian (it's not like he destroyed a detention center and then protested on the roof, is it?)...

The qualified right to free speech in this Country protects legitimate protests, protests by their very nature tend to discommode others (or they are remarkably ineffective).

What, in your view makes the protest illegitimate? The decision by authorities to stop traffic? I don't believe there were any signs saying that traffic over the bridge should be stopped? All I saw was one man (rather than the groups that PAY to climb the bridge) with the guts to stand up for something? Or should we have to get a permit to exercise our rights?

I was just thinking of all the objections when Joh cracked down on street protests in Qld.

Some food for thought in that.

R0bert

Let's see Custard- making threatening displays in the middle of an infrastructural choke-point would both be excellent grounds.

Of course, the authorities could have
a: closed the bridge in response to this guy
b: not closed the bridge, *and assumed he would not drop anything on motorists below, himself included*.
For some reason, they assumed he was not the kind of person who would fit into option B.

In fact to answer your question, half of us specifically stated that we should simply make it specifically illegal to hold physical protests on bridges, tunnels and other major infrastructural passages on the basis that this would obstruct vital traffic. A permit at very least WOULD be a fair call if somebody felt that their personal cause was much too important to hold a few blocks away in the city.

And I really don't give a toss what he believes in- it sure as hell does not give him the right to take it out on other people trying to mind their own business.

But obviously I was wrong.
I'm currently unhappy with School-Zone speed limits, and nobody else seems to care. So I'm going to MAKE them listen!
Therefore I have a good mind to stand in front of the emergency-entrance of a major hospital screaming my case, and making a point to remind everyone how good I am at armed combat.
I mean, it's not like I barricaded the door- they should just *assume* that despite everything I say, that I'm going to let them pass by me peacefully!

Alternatively, I could not be a selfish parasitic bastard and not put my personal problems ahead of other people's needs and expect others to tiptoe around me?
Don't get me wrong, every way society failed this guy needs to be drastically changed- it still does not excuse him by a long shot.

Kinghazza

"it still does not excuse him by a long shot."

WHY?

LEA