The Question of Proportionality

 I sat contemplating this question from the AM....from Berlin...."wann ist ein Schmerzgriff verhältnismäßig?"

Translated?  When is pain grip proportionate? 

So this revolves around the Last Generation activists, the glue-me-to-the-pavement trend, and how police resolve the protest when called upon.

For those who haven't grasped the whole thing.....'Last Generation' is a environmentalist group who believes if you create enough drama, and delay people getting to work (by gluing themselves to the asphalt)....then the delayed folks will give up supporting the evil carbon 'world'. 

However, in this effort with the glue....cops get called, and they make what you'd call a minimal effort to 'unfreeze' the 'kids' from the asphalt....thus triggering pain, suffering, agony, discomfort, misery and ache. 

Now?  The Last Generation folks think it's pretty crappy in the manner that the police grip them and handle them as the arrest occurs.

If you wander around Germany...particularly in cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg or Stuttgart....you will occasionally observe some tense situation where the police have arrived, and are in 'must-arrest' situation.  Typically with German police (I've watched this around a dozen times in my life....from a distance)....there's always a warning.  They might even repeat this two or three times.

Then they go into the act of taking the guy/gal down....handcuffing them....and putting into the bus/van/car.  As long as you don't fight them off...they don't physically hurt you (at least from my distant prospective).  

But when you start talking about an adhesive (glue) situation...I doubt if the activists have really done much homework on how this works, and the amount of pain you might suffer if the glue has only dissolved by 50-percent.  Any of these people playing the piano later?  I kinda doubt it.

Just in general....no one really calculates things with proportionality, at least not in the sense that a statistical average falls into play and you determine your life by a best average.   If they did...then you'd do the numbers to realize you can be arrested for a illegal protest action, and likely spend 90 days in jail.