First Amendment: Freedom to assemble/Petition
Freedom to assemble - where does it legally start and end?
When we look at the ability to freely assemble and protest a particular thing that We The People, disagree with, what are we looking at? What does the Bill of rights have to say about this?
”The right to assemble allows people to gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. Implicit within this right is the right to association and belief. The Supreme Court has expressly recognized that a right to freedom of association and belief is implicit in the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Freedom of assembly is recognized as a human right under article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
We, as a nation, are a nation of free people. For better or worse! We’ve got freedoms that other nations’ citizens would drool over. The ability to assemble for peaceful assemblies is a game changer, which covers a broad spectrum of political and religious bases. Others as well. But those are two big ones.
Coming together for religious reasons, such as attending church, is enormous!
There are well-established countries where believers are forced to meet in underground churches in secret, and bibles are essentially outlawed and considered to be illegal material to own.
Now that’s not to say there haven’t been abuses of this freedom in decades.
We look at such gatherings as the KKK.
As one article alluded to, they’ve had multiple “movements” over the decades, and “The Klan and Klan activity have been at the heart of many First Amendment cases.”
As well as various approaches to normalizing their set of beliefs. Never fully successful. However, periodically, they have managed to hold seats in political parties.
And have elected people into seats of power based on their practices and intimidations. They are the definition of an “Unlawful assembly.”
The KKK and the First Amendment
Unlawful Assembly
A positive outcome from the ability to assemble freely would be the modern-day church!
This is Francis Chan, a well-known American Protestant author, teacher, and preacher.
Truly a sold-out disciple of Christ.
Look up his content; you won’t regret it!
Over the decades, there have been numerous incidents of people coming together and essentially creating a revolt over a perceived injustice. Some sparked a fire in people’s hearts and minds, while others quietly passed on into the night, arguably leaving a faint trail behind. One such revolt that made headlines but never entirely amounted to anything like people anticipated was the “Occupy Wall Street movement.”
For those unfamiliar with their movement, they made the phrase “we’re the 99%” popular. Essentially, it boiled down to a majority of college students with Massive student loan debts who, by all accounts, “amplified outrage over America’s skewed distribution of wealth and opportunity.”
This movement was only in full-blown operation for about 59 days in camp cities spread across the Wall Street parks.
“On November 15, Occupy Wall Street was pepper-sprayed into the night by a squadron of police officers who helped shovel the tents, books, and placards left by activists into a fleet of sanitation trucks.”
Occupy Wall Street 10 years later
These protesters became such a problem that that was the only option. The mayor gave them a chance to vacate the premises. They refused and instead doubled down. So at a late hour in the night, the above quote was enacted. Approximately 8,000 protesters were arrested when all was said and done (looking at a timespan up to 2013).
I remember that time frame as a young 20-something-year-old. I had the news on in the background to see what happened with it all. I never supported the movement in the way people I knew did. I knew a few that were actually at some of the marches. But to understand the mindset of these people, though. You get where they were coming from. However, I can’t entirely agree, Nor can I rationalize what they did. I more accurately hold this view.
“Yeah, college debt sucks and follows you for a while! But you have to understand this…
when you go to college for an art degree, a philosophy degree, or any seemingly useless degree that sounded like fun, you find yourself thousands of dollars in debt with no prospect of finding work… you did it to yourself there.”
And I might add most people understand that nothing is truly “free.” There is almost always an associated cost with something. And If by some chance it is free. It isn’t. You’re the product! Think about that for a second or two.
But I don’t wholly blame these bright-eyed teens for going into the world thinking there going to be the next superstar. Because their mom or dad said they’re “special” or so “talented.” and even then, you can’t hold it against the parents. No, I hold the institutions and the various media outlets guilty. Because they blow these kids up with all this hype about how easy it is to become a pop sensation, and in today’s society, you only need to create a video on YouTube. And by the next day, you’ll go viral… there’s so much more to it than that. Or the idea that you can go to college and fart around for four years on a degree that’s, realistically speaking, useless!
And then go into the workforce and make bank right out of the bullpen is frivolous and does quite a disservice to you as an individual.
However, I digress.
This world we lived in during the Occupy Wall Street period no longer exists. I’m also afraid we’ll never see it again. The world we now call present-day America is a stark change from those days. We now have precedents for freezing protesters’ and supporters of protesters’ bank accounts because we don’t like what they’re doing. We saw that live and in living color through the trucker protest. At the start of this year, that originated in Canada. U.S citizens who may have contributed $10 for a coffee or something inconsequential had their bank accounts frozen. Why? How?
Well, let me tell you.
But first, this video:
"Send your semi-trailers home. The Canadian economy needs them to be doing legitimate work, not to be illegally making us all poorer,"
This is laughable because nothing about what they were doing < the establishment in Canada> was legitimate nor ethical. Since the time of this incident, they've removed all stipulations on such matters in Canada. Which! I suspect it had everything to do with what the truckers accomplished in their protest.
But what allowed them the reach to do so was an “Emergencies Act.” Which had never been implemented before and probably will continue to be implemented on future protesters. Essentially a “ we don’t like what you’re doing, so enjoy not having access to your money” move.
Emergencies Act - Trudeau article
However, this article could go on forever about this topic.
So let me leave you with this quote: