Well that was fun. Some of you might have seen the tear gas grenades going off in St. Paul last night as protesters and police clashed outside of a historic Minnesota greasy spoon, Mickey's Diner (which incidentally has excellent black bean soup). Some of you also might have noticed some TV guys getting blasted with the stuff and stumbling around blinded. I was one of them. No, I'm not gonna tell you which one
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Got me to thinking though. If you watched the events unfold (a good place to do this would be to look for the raw video of the protests on their local ABC affiliate, kstp.com) the protests were largely peaceful. In fact, one of the local stations (I think it's wcco.com but dont' quote me on that) has video of one of the protesters talking an anarchist down from a bus shelter and convincing him that breaking crap isn't the best way to get the point across. yet the protesters were met with cops in full riot gear, who would not allow them to demonstrate where they wanted to demonstrate.
In light of our supposed constitutional right to peacably assemble and petition the government for a redress of our grievances, is it right for the cops to stop protesters from protesting where they want to protest. Are "Free Speech Zones" sufficient to meet that constitutional right, even if, as I saw when at the DNC, the zones are positioned quite far away from the ears of the government officials whom the protestors would like to petition. Is this right?
Personally, I don't think so. Yes, the idiots breaking things and trying to swarm a private business should be stopped, but from where I sit, if you're peacefully chanting, not blocking traffic, not starting fights or riots, it is your right to be there, and to say what you want to say.
Your thoughts?