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To: abigkahuna
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(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.

33 posted on 11/18/2011 7:01:31 AM PST by Brookhaven (The media is throwing smoke bombs at Cain and claiming the smoke is proof of fire)
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To: Brookhaven
You're correct. The Founders included all your points implicitly when they wrote the First Amendment.

There should be some sort of time limit on those "assembling" and "petitioning" thingees. This is so that government can't be indefinitely distracted from the vital work of governing.

Also, there should some verbiage in there stating that the government and the media should have the final say on the definition of "peaceably", so's the People don't get any wrongheaded ideas about who's really in charge.

assemble Assemble does not imply a permanent condition. I'll admit the time frame is fuzzy here, but declaring you will be camping out indefinitely (possibly years) stretches the meaning of assemble beyond the breaking point.

Exactly. Why should a government have to tolerate endless antagonization from a malcontented group of its subjects?

34 posted on 11/18/2011 9:06:15 PM PST by kiryandil (turning Americans into felons, one obnoxious drunk at a time (Zero Tolerance!!!))
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