in the last 5ish years i've seen a pivot from "Terrorism is the reason we need people with automatic rifles at airports and cameras everywhere spying on you" to "Terrorism is a word that means doing anything for political reasons other than voting. in a democracy, you vote. politics is voting. everything else, like protesting or direct action or even publishing the wrong thing, is Terrorism. you must only vote, that is all that is allowed"
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part of the reason that old people will line up to get arrested at protests is they're retired so they don't fear a criminal record. but i think maybe another part of it is like, once you're old, authority is no longer a bunch of grownups who have power over you, most if not all of the people arresting you, trying you, sentencing you, and so on, are younger than you are. so, if you're old, you can look down your nose at them, perhaps rightly, as a bunch of stupid babies who don't know anything
something it took me a very long time to figure out, like, embarrassingly long, since the way they teach you about it at school avoids this uncomfortable part, is that 'peaceful protest' is fundamentally a threat of violence. people out in the streets holding objects, currently placards, imply later they might be holding something else. it is called a 'demonstration', in the same way that testing a nuclear weapon is a demonstration, it is deterrence through communication of capability and intent
@jk Terry Pratchett had this wonderfully put on an individual level:
"Blessings be upon this house", said Granny, but in a voice that suggested that if blessings needed to be taken away, she could do that, too.
