The historical space available for Americans to engage in public protest has been declining for many years, and is a topic I covered on several occasions during the Obama administration. For instance in the post, The War on Free Speech – U.S. Department of Justice Subpoenas Reason.com Over Comment Section, I noted:
Readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg will be well aware of the gradual erosion by the state of the civil liberties of the American public. Such attacks are typically sufficiently under the radar, so that the average citizen has no idea what is happening until it’s too late. I have written about such calculated assaults on many occasions, but the holy grail target of the status quo is the First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines a right to the freedom of religion, speech, the press, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Many aspects of the First Amendment have been neutered in practice. For example, the right to assemble peacefully and effectively is often prevented in practice by the need to secure permits and other hindrances (see “free speech cages” and “protest zones”) . Meanwhile, on college campuses, where activism is historically most vibrant, many schools have embraced the Orwellian concept of “free speech zones” in order to prevent free speech.
Unfortunately, it appears this trend is about to get a lot worse following the DAPL protests and increased activism we’ve seen since Trump’s election. As The Hill reports:
Republican state legislators across the country are advancing bills that would criminalize or penalize some public protests just a month after millions of Americans took to the streets in opposition to President Trump.
In North Dakota, where protesters occupied land around an unfinished section of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Gov. Doug Burgum (R) on Thursday signed four laws that would stiffen penalties against protests. The measures increase sanctions for offenses related to riots and broaden the definition of trespassing, allowing law enforcement officers to issue citations and fines.
The new laws, passed under emergency provisions that allow them to take effect immediately, came just hours after a protest camp near the pipeline was evacuated.
Senators in neighboring South Dakota on Thursday passed a bill that would allow the governor to create a “safety zone” in emergency situations. Anyone who entered the zone would be fined.
Legislators who backed the measure specifically cited the Dakota Access project and possible protests against the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which will run through South Dakota. Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R), who sponsored the legislation, said it was needed to deter “professional agitators.”
The Minnesota legislation follows protests against the shooting deaths of several black men by police. Those protests blocked roads leading to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Legislators in Indiana and Iowa have also considered bills to criminalize blocking streets during protests.
Arizona Republicans have introduced a measure to expand racketeering laws, which target organized crime groups, to include rioting. The bill would allow police officers to arrest and the seize the assets of those who organize protest events.
Civil libertarians say the measures are unconstitutional overreactions to a historic era of protests.
One measure in Tennessee goes so far as to give civil immunity to a driver who hits a protester blocking traffic.
The legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Matthew Hill (R), comes after a car hit volunteers helping protesters cross a street in Nashville as they demonstrated against the Trump administration’s orders blocking immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Hill’s measure passed its first test in a state Senate committee earlier his month. Hill did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
A similar bill failed in the North Dakota legislature earlier this month.
Republican-led legislatures in Michigan and Virginia have already rejected their own measures increasing penalties on protests.
While disturbing, the above presents opportunities as well as challenges. For example, despite several very interesting protest movements since the financial crisis, none have been really effective in changing anything in a material way. We need to ask why that’s the case, and it seems to me that a change in tactic when it comes to much needed non-violent, protest and civil disobedience is in order. As I noted in the post, Why Increased Consciousness is the Only Path Forward:
At this stage, many of us are able to diagnose the problem, but that’s not going to be enough to truly change the world. I believe the determining factor as to whether we emerge from this dark period on the other side of a far more enlightened world, will be the way we respond to the situation.
We’re going to have to be increasingly creative in the way we protest “the system” in order for it to have real impact. I think economic boycotts need to be a key tactic in this battle, particularly since the paradigm we live under is so singularly focused on the accumulation of more and more wealth and power in the hands of the few. We will need to identify those corporations involved in the most egregious practices against our best interests, and refuse to engage with them in any sort of economic relationship whenever and wherever possible.
Technology will also be increasingly important. The creation and distribution of the Bitcoin network to the world for free was not just a tremendous gift to humanity, but it also provided us with an alternative form of money that we can shift into as an expression of our disapproval of the current criminal syndicate money system we operate under. My hope is that people who come up with groundbreaking discoveries in the health and energy realm, likewise will consider releasing their technologies to the world for free as a form of protest and gesture of good faith. I’m sure there are creative ways for such inventors to figure out a way to make considerable money from their inventions, while at the same time putting it out there for free like the creator of Bitcoin did.
The future of the world is at stake, and our best hope is that many of the groundbreaking new technologies to come are used to empower humanity to the next level, as opposed to enslaving the many for the benefit of the few (old way of thinking). We simply need the smartest minds to shift their world-views to a higher level of understanding and consciousness. A perspective of voluntary giving, as opposed to obsessive taking is in order. I’m not talking about the government redistributing stuff, I’m talking about genuine compassionate giving from those individuals who have the ability to change the world.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Lighten up, Mike. They’re just keeping us safe.
Lmao
Sorry Michael, but you have to draw the line somewhere between protest and rioting. It’s one thing to gather and make your voices heard, rising up against some injustice. It’s quite another to inflict harm upon others, whether it be personal assaults, property damage, or just plain being a pain in the ass to those who are in no way associated with target of the protest.
The very first thing which came to my mind when reading the Hill piece was this sad lot of SJW’s who decided to shut down the single most traveled freeway in all of New England — during rush hour — in some pathetic attempt at saving Black Lives.
http://www.wcvb.com/article/protesters-with-arms-in-concrete-barrels-shut-down-expressway/8215367
Not only were no Black Lives spared, many lives of all races/genders/political philosophies were put in danger by blocking the travel of emergency vehicles. Then there was the massive cost and collective waste of time of all those thousands of commuters, more than a few who missed flights out of the airport.
And for this, these SJW’s received probation and community service.
http://www.wcvb.com/article/2-expressway-protesters-plead-guilty-sentenced-to-probation-and-community-service/8231115
Given the increased hostilities associated with anything and everything anti-Trump these days, I’d say caution is warranted. If the entitled, spoiled brats at UC Berkeley can’t even protest Milo without burning down their campus, the shark has most definitely been jumped.
In all things we must ask the question of who ultimately benefits? In the protest case you cited we know it was certainly not the inconvenienced travelling public, nor Black Lives Matter as a corporate funded NGO. So who gained any benefit except perhaps the authoritarians who are given a casus belli to clamp down on first amendment privileges. We all know of agent provocateurs embedded within peaceful protest to cause riot so that the authorities can arrest and break up what started as legitimate protest. I think of the current corporate funded mass protests as in themselves as giant agent provocateurs being set up to be taken down. The agenda being to end the privilege to peacefully protest, muzzled before any influence with the larger public can take place and those protesting ‘learn’ not to bother with devastating fines, arrest, often violent, and disproportionate sentencing. If the means to peaceful protest and to possibly secure a remedy to a problem are legislated away then surely violent protest will follow when conditions become intolerable. As elsewhere so to in America.
Hi Michael,
I agree that what is happening will require an increase in consciousness, a commitment to caring, as well as not allowing ourselves to be divided, not buying in to the divide and conquer BS.
Boycotts are effective. (Have you moved your bank acct out of the Bigs, btw?) Are you familiar with Food Babe? She’s been terrific at leaning on companies to change their products and the food industry hates her for this. Can we apply what she does to, say, ending private prisons? Or anything else? How to scale this up and out?
Who of us ever learns how to fight for our rights? The simple logistics of how to do so in court, for example. Did they teach that in your school? How do we fight increasing surveillance? How do we fight against bureaucratic regulation that comes not from legislation but administrative overrreach? Many people do not realize when their rights are being trampled. Practical as well as spiritual tools in fighting tyranny– we need both.
Best,
Shannon
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Carl Jung
Protests are increasingly becoming excuses for acts of criminality.
People can’t protest like they used to. Feces on the ground, cars set ablaze, buildings vandalized or damaged, theft, throwing of rocks, bottles, other things.. we can’t have first world rights because so many use third world tactics, and people get hurt. I agree that we have less and less “space” to protest.. even though we are guaranteed our right to PEACEABLY assemble anywhere. We are not guaranteed the right to act like third world domestic terrorists and bring harm to others. The other problem is that nobody holds the government accountable to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights anymore. So they run roughshod over the citizenry.
Doesn’t seem like many protesters speak out or denounce these ‘agitators’ either. They could start placing them under citizens arrest and handing them over to law enforcement for prosecution.. but I highly doubt even a handful of people remember that we have the right, and the duty, to do this.
The society as a whole is degrading in a more rapid pace, and we do need to find a way to come together, quickly. Everyone is different, every mind is different, nobody agrees on everything, but most have something in common with the next person, no matter how small it is.
In this digital and technological age, people have forgot how to have a real conversation, they are so used to ‘trolling’ online, they troll in real life. There is little respect for the neighbor, or the person at the table next to you, morals have been all but forgotten, as well as most public and private decency. People just don’t seem to care much about the person standing across from them. It has been ALLOWED to become LEFT vs. RIGHT.. all of this planned of course for nefarious reasons, but the point is we allow this. It is easier to fight, than to try to understand each other and come up with mutual solutions.
The biggest threat comes from the left. You should know. You have experienced it. And then there are the attacks on Milo and Mcinnes, and the attacks on Trump supporters
Violent protests are incredibly overblown. The fact that all the above commentators wax poetic on the ills of “murderous dissidents” is proof of the depth of propaganda. Remember the civil rights, LGBT and feminist (before it got corrupted) movements all coalesced with peaceful demonstrations, and consider the self righteous blow back against those movements. I have been to dozens of protests and not once witnessed an act of violence that wasn’t perpetuated by police.
Hey folks, when the shit hits the fan, who do you think is going to be on your side, the police, who serve the wealthy and compliant, or the “dirty thugs” you love to despise?
Technocracy has been pushing this idea of transitioning from currency to “energy credits” since forever. You can read more about it on their website. Given that everything else they have been so “expert” about since the ’70’s, I wouldn’t put too much faith in it.
That’s not what he was talking about, he was talking about how Bitcoin and gold make more sense as money for a free people and why.