Protesting Without a Permit???By Carl F. Worden
Cindy Sheehan, the Vacaville mother who ignited the anti-war movement this past summer with her 26-day protest outside President Bush's Texas ranch, was arrested Monday at the White House for demonstrating
without a permit.
Absolutely nothing in the Constitution requires United States citizens to protest whatever, only if they have a permit to do so. Indeed, the Constitution, and the original intent of the Framers, made it an absolute, unfettered right to protest anything and everything any citizen or group of citizens chooses to protest. That is how far we have fallen from original intent.
Sure, we must all follow the basic rule that my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose. If a protest of sorts interferes with another citizen's right to go about his/her business, then those protesters have crossed the line. Some Iraq war protesters blocked the way of government workers to the Pentagon and got arrested for it, and they should have been arrested for the simple reason they directly interfered with the mutual civil rights of government workers just trying to get to where they must in order to perform their jobs.
Same thing is true of Abortion Protesters. If a person like me, who is categorically against a woman's right to kill her own baby for no better reason than personal convenience, physically stands in the way of some woman wanting to enter an abortion clinic, then that woman's right to enter the facility has been equally violated.
But if a Cindy Sheehan wants to protest in front of the White House, without interfering with the ingress or egress of those entering therein or leaving, the Constitution and Bill of Rights specifically prohibits the current government from requiring Sheehan or anybody else from first applying for and getting a government permit to do so. That requirement is so offensive to original intent that no rational argument can be presented to support it.
The same principle applies to forcing those who oppose current administration policy to set up their protest in an area designated "approved" on public property. In recent years, and specifically originated under President Clinton's Administration, protesters attending an event where President Clinton was to appear, were forced to perform their protest in an area confined and often far removed from where the president was planning to speak. President Bush has used the same tactics, and continues to use them, wherever he appears to speak. While rabid, socialist and liberal Democrats thought Clinton's tactics were just great, they are now reaping the spoils of a succeeding administration of Nazi/Fascist whackos who are using the same tactics against them. When citizens violate the basic privileges of constitutional rule and get away with it, try to remember they will inherit the same wind when it blows the other way.
Back when President Bush was campaigning for re-election, he came to Southern Oregon for a rally at a publicly owned facility. Two local school teachers were checked for security reasons and were admitted to the rally. They were quietly awaiting Bush's speech, when Bush security personnel forcibly ejected them from the event. Why? The two teachers wore T-shirts that had the words, "Protect Our Civil Liberties" emblazoned on them. They did not create a disturbance in any way, and they were simply awaiting to hear what Bush had to say. I don't care what political party has arranged for the event, when that event is held on publicly-owned property, nobody of any party affiliation has the right to expel American citizens from attending, unless they have created a disturbance or demonstrated an obvious security risk -- which the two did not.
That was the moment I could no longer support the local Republican Party, but those Democrats who stood idly by when Clinton's people did the same thing years before, deserve the exact same level of contempt. We are all Americans, protected under the same rules and rights the Constitution guarantees each of us individually, and those rights have been trampled by all of them. I expect the Supreme Court to rule on this vile practice eventually.
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=10109.
