Some right wingers are now proclaiming that protestors are violating the 1st amendment rights of Trump at his rallies.
First of all, the 1st amendment refers to the government not abridging the rights of citizens to speak out, and assemble. It should also protect the press from government interference.
Trump’s thoughts and words have been broadcast at an unprecedented level. He has received and continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free media broadcasts.
At his rallies, dissenters are consistently taken out of the rallies by governmental officials.
The press at his rallies are confined to a pen and regularly maligned by Trump to his audience.
A Secret Service agent at one event, man-handled a press photographer who stepped less than two feet outside the pen, and slammed that photographer into a table. (Trump, who the SS agent was there to protect, was nowhere near that immediate vicinity.)
At a University, a group of young black people were escorted out, apparently for being black and in a group, before a Trump rally even began.
Trump has consistently promoted the idea of violent actions by his followers against dissenters (and has even falsely promised to pay for legal fees should someone be violent against a dissenter).
How obvious must it be that it is not Trump’s and his followers’ 1st amendment rights that are being abridged? Trump has possibly engaged in more “free” speech than anyone in history.
Some right wingers are now proclaiming that protestors are violating the 1st amendment rights of Trump at his rallies. First of all, the 1st amendment refers to the government not abridging the rights of citizens to speak out, and assemble. It should also protect the press from government interference. Trump's thoughts and words have been broadcast at an unprecedented level. He has received and continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free media broadcasts. At his rallies, dissenters are consistently taken out of the rallies by governmental officials. The press at his rallies are confined to a pen and regularly maligned by Trump to his audience. A Secret Service agent at one event, man-handled a press photographer who stepped less than two feet outside the pen, and slammed that photographer into a table. (Trump, who the SS agent was there to protect, was nowhere near that immediate vicinity.) At a University, a group of young black people were escorted out, apparently for being black and in a group, before a Trump rally even began. Trump has consistently promoted the idea of violent actions by his followers against dissenters (and has even falsely promised to pay for legal fees should someone be violent against a dissenter). How obvious must it be that it is not Trump's and his followers' 1st amendment rights that are being abridged? Trump has possibly engaged in more "free" speech than anyone in history.Idiot Republicans will never consider reason. They are incapable of it.
In other words, not obvious enough.
Everybody loves to throw the 1st Amend. around.
The fact is these rallies are organized events that are being held to cater to people wishing to see
a public figure speak.
Just like in any other scenario, if people come to disrupt the event; the event hall, organizers, and authorities have the right to remove people.
Just like anywhere else.
You can’t go into a church and cause commotions. Or a movie theater, or seminar on fishing, or a public concert in a park etc.
It’s not even close to any kind of 1st Amend. issue. For either party…
It’s just a public nuisance issue. The people who own these halls or manage them cannot be expected to
endure disruptions or commotions. They have halls for peaceful congregation, not for antagonizing, disruptive fiascoes.
People always get removed from any other politician’s events. This is no different.
A rally by a person who could be our next POTUS, is not exactly the same as a church meeting, or a movie theater, or a seminar on fishing, or a public concert in a park. The person’s constituents mostly attend in order to promote the candidate. They shout out their approval. Others might attend just to hear the person’s views. Others might attend to shout out their disapproval. It is an event that can have an influence on the course of our government. There are members of the “free” press in attendance.
A rally by a person who could be our next POTUS, is not exactly the same as a church meeting, or a movie theater, or a seminar on fishing, or a public concert in a park. The person's constituents mostly attend in order to promote the candidate. They shout out their approval. Others might attend just to hear the person's views. Others might attend to shout out their disapproval. It is an event that can have an influence on the course of our government. There are members of the "free" press in attendance.That's romantic.....then there's the law. There's another event that influences politics..it's called voting. People do attend these rallies to shout out disapproval, then the management of said event halls have the people removed. Nobody is legally obligated to have their events ruined by outside dissenters and crashers. That's what the police are for. To maintain order. It happens all the time. It's against the law to disrupt people's private gatherings. You would have to refer to the local codes of each individual municipality, but believe me, there's generally laws about public menacing in every town.
A rally by a person who could be our next POTUS, is not exactly the same as a church meeting, or a movie theater, or a seminar on fishing, or a public concert in a park. The person's constituents mostly attend in order to promote the candidate. They shout out their approval. Others might attend just to hear the person's views. Others might attend to shout out their disapproval. It is an event that can have an influence on the course of our government. There are members of the "free" press in attendance.That's romantic.....then there's the law. There's another event that influences politics..it's called voting. People do attend these rallies to shout out disapproval, then the management of said event halls have the people removed. Nobody is legally obligated to have their events ruined by outside dissenters and crashers. That's what the police are for. To maintain order. It happens all the time. It's against the law to disrupt people's private gatherings. You would have to refer to the local codes of each individual municipality, but believe me, there's generally laws about public menacing in every town. So your stance is that all of Trump's rallies are private gatherings. They don't seem to be very private to me. I really don't think that he means for them to be private. I think that he means for them to get as much public airtime as possible. And they get a lot of public airtime. And this is because he correctly assumes that it will motivate citizens outside of the "private" event, to vote for him in the most public of contests for the governmental position of POTUS. Nope. Romance aside, a publicly broadcast rally for a candidate seeking to be POTUS (the one governmental office position that can be voted on by all of the eligible citizens of the US), is not the same thing as a sporting event, or a lodge meeting, or a church service, etc.
It doesn’t matter, people can’t cause disorder in public or private places.
The public has a reasonable expectation of decency and peace.
And private events, if they so choose, have a protection against outside ruffians and malcontents who wish to disrupt.
Even though an event is held on privately owned property it is not necessarily legally considered a private event, and political rallies fall into this category. If anyone’s 1st Amendment rights are being trampled it is the protesters who are being asked to leave a public event just because they disagree with the speaker. The violation comes in law enforcement removing these people without good cause. Did you see the video of the guy getting sucker punched last week? Did you notice the police tackled him to the ground and left his assailant alone? The sheriff’s office arrested the attacker the next day when he should have been handcuffed and arrested immediately. These are chilling developments. Trump has crossed the line from passive endorsement of violence to active approval, and is bordering the line of inciting people to violence.
Yeah, it’s not that chilling really. Seems like good ole American politics to me.
Public events, private events, oh my!
The same thing happens at any other event political or otherwise.
The police remove disruptive people.
Yep, just politics as usual. That makes attacking peaceful protesters OK, I guess.
Yeah, it's not that chilling really. Seems like good ole American politics to me. Public events, private events, oh my! The same thing happens at any other event political or otherwise. The police remove disruptive people.The police haven't removed Trump from his rallies. He has been quite a force for disruption. You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people. That is bullshit. Oh my!
The police haven't removed Trump from his rallies. He has been quite a force for disruption. You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people.Did I make a mistake? Is there something in the Constitution that covers campaign rallies?
Point is, if Mr. Trump can’t handle politics, protests, and dissent which are part and parcel to the politics, he needs to reevaluate his place in politics. This all should be very revealing. There is absolutely no reason to defend this. This is not some private board meeting which Trump is used to. Politics is not (or should not be) about private rooms, closed doors, and agreement. Trump wants to run the government from a private board room in an executive chair and that’s not politics. The job is not for him. Politics is all about considering the “other” point of view and implications to “all” citizens and even the world, not winner-loser CEO schemes. Trump is showing his style and (distorted) view of power and politics, so listen and watch and decide if that’s who America should be run.
And Trump has had people and groups of people removed for “looking” a certain way, so what’s the justification for that? Because you look like you might be part of a protest or you look like you might start a commotion, you should be removed?
He is breeding a culture of violence. What happens if he becomes President and travels abroad? We’re already living in a culture of terror and terrorists, what happens when other groups tap into this?
Early on in Trumps campaign, when he first made the remarks about Mexicans, a man in Boston (I believe) beatup a homeless man and cited Trumps ideology. When asked about it, instead of Trump denouncing it, his response was, “I’ve got some passionate followers” or something to that affect.
The police haven't removed Trump from his rallies. He has been quite a force for disruption. You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people.Did I make a mistake? Is there something in the Constitution that covers campaign rallies? http://www.lincoln.edu/criminaljustice/hr/Assembly.htm
Point is, if Mr. Trump can't handle politics, protests, and dissent which are part and parcel to the politics, he needs to reevaluate his place in politics. This all should be very revealing. There is absolutely no reason to defend this. This is not some private board meeting which Trump is used to. Politics is not (or should not be) about private rooms, closed doors, and agreement. Trump wants to run the government from a private board room in an executive chair and that's not politics. The job is not for him. Politics is all about considering the "other" point of view and implications to "all" citizens and even the world, not winner-loser CEO schemes. Trump is showing his style and (distorted) view of power and politics, so listen and watch and decide if that's who America should be run. And Trump has had people and groups of people removed for "looking" a certain way, so what's the justification for that? Because you look like you might be part of a protest or you look like you might start a commotion, you should be removed? He is breeding a culture of violence. What happens if he becomes President and travels abroad? We're already living in a culture of terror and terrorists, what happens when other groups tap into this? Early on in Trumps campaign, when he first made the remarks about Mexicans, a man in Boston (I believe) beatup a homeless man and cited Trumps ideology. When asked about it, instead of Trump denouncing it, his response was, "I've got some passionate followers" or something to that affect.There is a currently standing law (whose Constitutionality has not been tested) that allows for the penalty of up to one year imprisonment for protestors who "disrupt" in an area in which Secrete Service agents are assigned. If someone is in such an area and shouts out in a way that is "disruptive" to Trump's message, they could be subject to up to a year's imprisonment. Laws must be respected, but only, IMO, to the extent that the laws are respectable. If all of us, always, obey laws, even though they might conflict with our Constitutional freedoms, then our Constitutional freedoms begin to become moot. If protestors intend to disrupt Trump's message, they are not effectively interfering with his freedom of expression, otherwise, Trump would not continue to have the most broadcast message of possibly any political figure in our history. They ARE breaking a current law. They ARE risking becoming political prisoners. I say more power to them. I have heard enough of Trump's self-contradicting, hate-mongering, violence inciting, nationally embarrassing speech. I want to hear more from those who stand against this kind of messaging. Anyone who risks personal harm and imprisonment to non-violently express themselves in this manner, has my respect. Laws that unconstitutionally abridge their rights to peaceably assemble and express themselves, do not have my respect.
For Trump’s part, apparently, you have to be pretty specific about telling someone to commit a violent act and have that act be imminent (or some fancy word like that). I’m sure Trump is well aware of this. He says things like “if they are disrupting” and “get them” instead of “get that guy in the red shirt”. In the Bill Moyers article I read, he also said that his stature and the fact that he is running for President do give him some leeway. I don’t quite get that, but in practice that is how it works.
The police haven't removed Trump from his rallies. He has been quite a force for disruption. You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people.Did I make a mistake? Is there something in the Constitution that covers campaign rallies? Yes. The right of the people peaceably to assemble. This is the case at campaign rallies and any other gathering. But when things get out of hand and it's no lomger "peaceable" something needs to be done. One would hope the police handle it fairly, but, as we've seen they often do not--which adds to the chaos. Lois
For Trump's part, apparently, you have to be pretty specific about telling someone to commit a violent act and have that act be imminent (or some fancy word like that). I'm sure Trump is well aware of this. He says things like "if they are disrupting" and "get them" instead of "get that guy in the red shirt". In the Bill Moyers article I read, he also said that his stature and the fact that he is running for President do give him some leeway. I don't quite get that, but in practice that is how it works.In fact his "stature" and "the fact he's running for president" should temper his violent rhetoric, but it doesn't. That's a huge part of the problem. Trump is hardly presidential--he is a schoolyard bully and rabble-rouser. I shudder to think how he would present himself as the leader if the Western world. He would be a supreme embarrassment, and I hope he never has the chance to do it. If he does, all Americans will be seen as ignorant bullies--at a time when the reasonable partof the Western world at least is becoming civilized. Meanwhile, America loses ground. What is happening to the country Americans could be proud of? Soon, nobody will respect America. We'll be seen as Trump presents us--gun-toting' ignorant rednecks. Lois
The police haven't removed Trump from his rallies. He has been quite a force for disruption. You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people.Did I make a mistake? Is there something in the Constitution that covers campaign rallies? http://www.lincoln.edu/criminaljustice/hr/Assembly.htm Can you read your own writing Tim? Do you remember what you wrote? It's right there..above. And here below... You seem to maintain that a campaign rally by a candidate for POTUS is no different (from a Constitutional perspective) than any other gathering of people. So like I said, is there anything in the Constitution that covers Campaign rallies specifically, apart from Freedom of assembly? Because like you said, I do maintain that a campaign rally is no different than any other gathering of people...from a Constitutional perspective.