Okay, I have my flame suit on, but riddle me this:
While I DO NOT agree with the OWS, or what it stands for, the question I have is do citizens have the right to take certain actions in the guise of their “petition to redress grievances”?
Is pitching a tent in the center of NYC a first amendment issue? Do a million Tea Partiers marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, each with a rifle slung over the shoulders, have the right to argue that they are practicing freedom of speech?
The question I have is at what point to citizens have the right to tell the government NO! We will no obey this, or that regulation, and will practice disobedience. At what point does the citizenry have the obligation to dismantle the existing structure?
It is becoming very clear that this nation has become either a kleptocracy, or simply fascist. OWS was an unfocused temper tantrum, the Tea Party hasn’t gone far enough. and quite frankly, it looks like elections in 2012 won’t matter a twit.
The real question should be who would you feel safer around, stone cold sober Tea Partiers armed to the teeth with a clear, cogent idea of their grievances, OR a bunch of vile, disease ridden, drug addled clueless idiots reeking of the stench of marijuana smoke?
No and yes. No to the first, because the First Amendment confers the right to speak, not to be given a venue in which to speak. Yes to the second because, under the First Amendment they can argue that they are practicing freedom of speech, and that's the extent of it. The First Amendment does not give them the right to march down Pennsylvania Avenue, each with a rifle over his shoulder. Whether they may legally do so depends upon the laws in effect at the time, but it's not a First Amendment issue.
And remember, civil disobedience does not imply that one performing it must be given a pass on whatever lawbreaking he may do in the process of being civilly disobedient. True civil disobedience involves taking full responsibility for whatever breaches of law that one commits.
What a bullshit analogy. You are not going to see a million rifle toting Tea Partiers marching. Don’t try to stuff your moral equivalency crap down our throats.
Spot on.
However, there are those on every side of the political spectrum who do not necessarily believe that those with opposing views should be protected by the First Amendment.
If you have to ask if pitching a tent in NYC is a First Ammendment issue, it’s no wonder you have to ask if pitching a tent in NYC is a First Ammendment issue.
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, Edited by Edward Corwin
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PRESS IN PUBLIC PARKS AND STREETS
Notable also is the protection which the Court has erected in recent years for those who desire to use the streets and the public parks as theatres of discussion, agitation, and propaganda dissemination. In 1897 the Court unanimously sustained an ordinance of the city of Boston which provided that “no person shall, in or upon any of the public grounds, make any public address,” etc., “except in accordance with a permit of the Mayor,”[144] quoting with approval the following language from the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the same case. “For the legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in the house. When no [Pg 785]proprietary right interferes the legislature may end the right of the public to enter upon the public place by putting an end to the dedication to public uses. So it may take the less step of limiting the public use to certain purposes.”[145] Forty-two years later this case was distinguished in Hague v. C.I.O.[146] (See p. 808.) And in 1948 in Saia v. New York[147] an ordinance forbidding the use of sound amplification devices by which sound is cast directly upon the streets and public places, except with permission of the chief of police, for the exercise of whose discretion no standards were prescribed, was held unconstitutional as applied to one seeking leave to amplify religious lectures in a public park. The decision was a five-to-four holding; and eight months later a majority, comprising the former dissenters and the Chief Justice, held it to be a permissible exercise of legislative discretion to bar sound trucks, with broadcasts of public interest, amplified to a loud and raucous volume, from the public ways of a municipality.[148] Conversely, it was within the power of the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia, following a hearing and investigation, to issue an order permitting the Capital Transit Company, despite the protest of some of its patrons, to receive and amplify on its street cars and buses radio programs consisting generally of 90% music, 5% announcements, and 5% commercial advertising. Neither operation of the radio service nor the action of the Commission permitting it was precluded by the First and Fifth Amendments.[149]
[Pg 786]
Under still unoverruled decisions an ordinance forbidding any distribution of circulars, handbills, advertising, or literature of any kind within the city limits without permission of the City Manager is an unlawful abridgment of freedom of the press.[150] So also are ordinances which forbid, without exception, any distributions of handbills upon the streets.[151] Even where such distribution involves a trespass upon private property in a company owned town,[152] or upon Government property in a defense housing development,[153] it cannot be stopped. The passing out of handbills containing commercial advertising may, however, be prohibited; this is true even where such handbills may contain some matter which, standing alone would be immune from the restriction.[154] A municipal ordinance forbidding any person to ring door bells, or otherwise summon to the door the occupants of any residence, for the purpose of distributing to them circulars or handbills was held to infringe freedom of speech and of the press as applied to a person distributing advertisements of a religious meeting.[155] But an ordinance forbidding door to door peddling or canvassing unless it is invited or requested by the occupant of a private residence is valid.[156]
We do have instructions for that ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
(1) the right of the people peaceably to assemble There is no right to assemble in a non-peaceful way. Nor is there a right to create a public health hazard, riot, or make threats of violence. None of these fall under "peacably".
(2) The 1st amendment applies to the government Zucotti park is private property. There is no constitutional right to use someone else's property to exercise your free speech rights. Had OWS chosen a publicly owned park, they might be on firmer ground here.
(3) assemble Assemble does not imply a permanent condition. I'll admit the time frame is fuzzy here, but declaring you will be camping out indefinitly (possibly years) stretchs the meaning of assemble beyond the breaking point.