Posted on 08/17/2017 2:33:10 PM PDT by ForYourChildren
Of course they do.
The MSM is the guilty party. They protect the Deep State.
By Matthew Haag; April 26, 2017
On the February night that the right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at the University of California, Berkeley, thousands of protesters showed up wearing bandannas and masks covering their faces. Their identities a secret from the police, some in the crowd turned violent and set fires.
Mr. Yiannopoulos’s speech was canceled, and, until Wednesday morning, the authorities at Berkeley were preparing for what could have been an even larger demonstration over the visit of another polarizing figure, Ann Coulter. The conservative media personality, who has said she would speak Thursday, canceled her appearance after the conservative groups that had initially sponsored her backed out because of safety concerns.
Some conservative media sites have criticized the University of California for not cracking down on protesters from the left, and have lauded the tough stance taken by the authorities at Auburn University in Alabama. Before a speech by the white nationalist Richard Spencer at the Auburn campus last week, the police stopped anti-fascist protesters and ordered them to remove their masks.
The different approaches by the police at Berkeley and Auburn illustrate more than just a contrast in tactics to try to tame clashes between far-left and far-right demonstrators. The authorities in Alabama also have a law enforcement tool that those in California lack: a broad anti-mask law. Since 1949, it has been illegal to wear a mask in public in Alabama outside of occasions like Halloween and Mardi Gras. That sweeping law, and others enacted across the country around that time, was in direct response to the Ku Klux Klan. Numerous states have laws governing the wearing of masks in public. In Ohio, for instance, it is illegal for two or more people to wear “white caps, masks or other disguises” while committing a misdemeanor. In West Virginia, a broad law prohibiting the wearing of masks includes several exceptions: holiday costumes and winter sports attire, among others. California had an expansive anti-mask law for decades, until the Iranian revolution in 1979. Iranian-Americans in California sued over the law, saying it kept them from shielding their identities for safety purposes in protests against the new leadership in Iran. The law was struck down. “The California court recognized, and other courts recognize, that people wear masks in all sorts of situations for completely nonviolent and, in fact, purposes that are protected by the First Amendment,” Michael T. Risher, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said in an interview. After that case, the state enacted a far narrower provision: It is illegal to wear a mask in the act of committing a crime. The University of California, Berkeley, also has its own regulation for masks: People who are not affiliated with the university cannot wear masks on campus for the purpose of intimidation. But Mr. Risher said the university had not tried to enforce its regulation against protesters who were merely wearing masks, probably because the word “intimidation” is vague and open to many interpretations. “Because of the attention these protests and their responses are getting, they are probably taking a restrictive view of what intimidation constitutes,” he said. “They are focusing, as they should, on people who are committing criminal acts.” Across the country, courts have reached different conclusions on whether mask laws violate the First Amendment. In 1999, the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan won a case against Goshen, Ind., in Federal District Court over the city’s ordinance banning masks in public. A New York State law prohibiting “being masked or in any manner disguised” in public has withstood legal challenges since 1845 and has been used recently. The police in New York City cited the mask law while arresting people associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 and 2012. Like the laws in other states, the New York statute includes exceptions for masquerade parties and other entertainment events. But unlike other states, New York did not pursue the legislation in response to the Ku Klux Klan. The law was intended to prevent the killing of landlords by tenant farmers in the Hudson Valley who dressed up as American Indians and wore disguises of calico gowns and leather masks.
My apologies. It was meant to be funny.
Satire is sometimes difficult to portray online.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.