Folks do not like to acknowledge it, but the reality is you have no first amendment right if the police are allowed to arrest you when you have broken no law, and are assembling in the effort to petition power for a redress of grievance. All the rhetorical trickery aside, it comes down to that.
I wrote about all this in 2018, and 6 tumultuous years later, not a thing has change. Major media has learned nothing. Pols have learned nothing. A whole lot of “centrist/moderates” have learned nothing.
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As in, am I a lawyer? No.
Police are consistently found to have violated protesters 1A rights, and police behavior doesn’t change. We get legal opinions on it after every protest cycle, but little attention. Taxpayers pay for it. Next cycle, rinse repeat. Same tactics, same suits, same results.
What exactly do you call it if the police can routinely violate people’s rights, be found legally responsible for violating those rights and not be forced to change anything about how they handle protest?
Or even worse when the local city has a pet project that is unpopular by the local citizens and the city council chooses to sic the police on the protesting populace. (ATL and cop city). Those moments make it VERY clear that the right to protest is actually just a privilege.
very true. pretty much all of our rights vanish when we are faced with state violence; as mao said, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
I think the disconnect between people who have attempted to engage in sustained protest and people who haven’t is one of the major stumbling blocks. It’s almost impossible to overcome the narratives we’re raised neck deep in, until you see the reality first hand.
1. Sustained protests are inherently inaccessible.
2. Some protesters are only day protesters and others are only night protesters.
3. Ones where you camp more than others, are a point of decreasing support depending on the days faster than others where there is no camping.
4. City workers hate cleaning up after it. Code enforcers are noticing hazards. They can’t shut off their job brain. And I can envision it’s similar with private property.
All of this is selective enforcement or application.
If we can’t summon the solidarity for people oppressed and marginalized differently than we are, why should they grant if when we need it?
The disconnect isn’t specific to labor. It is an issue of conditioning, indoctrination and ignorance.
The constitution is there to give people the illusion of freedom.
Just like if cops can justify killing you just by you being “armed” you do not have a second-amendment right to bear arms, either.
