Saturday, May 1, 2021

Making The Constitution Unconstitutional

MORE THAN NINETY LAWS in thirty five states are being proposed by Republican controlled legislatures, and the first one has already been signed into law in Florida, essentially making it illegal in the United States to peacefully assembly and peacefully protest on public property, and including harsh penalties for doing so. Any of them which actually become laws will inevitably be challenged in court as violating first amendment protections of assembly and speech, and, at first glance, would seem destined to be eventually ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the modern face of the Republican party, for which the description "fascist" seems increasingly,  frighteningly fit. Not a single republican legislator in freedom's land has openly acknowledged that all these police state legislative proposals are in any way a response to the Black Lives Matter movement which swept into America's city streets last summer, but that is obviously the case. The right wing is inclined to deny the existence of racism in America, and was quite outspoken inits opposition to last summer's demonstrations, falsely characterizing them as "riots", when in fact looting and violence occurred in less than five percent of BLM protests. These proposls are being misleadingly described as "anti-riot" and "pro law enforcement", measures. Most of them include passages making it illegal to impede pedestrian traffic on sidewalks and to hinder vehicular traffic on public roads while protesting. An overturned garbage can or a discarded protest sign can result in years in prison. Aren't the republicans usually complaining about government over reach, about big government attacks and infringements on constitutional guarantees and civil liberties? Or do they really only mean civil liberties and freedoms whose exercise is generally enjoyed and exercised by conservatives, such as the right to carry concealed and unconcealed weapons in public, the right to refuse to wear a face masks in public when mandated by the government during a pandemic, and the right to gather together packed in like sardines in houses of worship, loudly singing hymns and sharing a deadly virus? It seems that in the right wing mind the constitutional right to peacefully assemble and peacefully speak about racism in America is an exception to constitutional guarantees of liberty. Perhaps only left wing, liberal, progressive liberties are not guaranteed by the constitution. Ransacking the Capitol building in support of Donald Trump is seemingly protected under the first amendment. Conservative assembly and speech must be protected, progressive assembly and speech is a riot. Perhaps the next conservative step is to make church attendance mandatory, gun carrying mandatory, and all references to systemic racism illegal. True defenders of liberty, those republicans. don't look now, but the far right populist mob is coming, coming to get anything even remotely resembling progressive pro activism.

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