Candid, passionate and even angry debate is an essential feature of a free and democratic society. The First Amendment establishes an inviolable space for Americans to express their views and to “peaceably assemble.” Rallies, protests and marches are all protected by those guarantees.
What the Constitution doesn’t protect is the right to intimidate or engage in violence against those with different views. Harassment, even if technically not against the law, is wrong and corrosive to discourse. When advocates stop trying to persuade and choose instead to bully, frighten and threaten political opponents, they are at war with the values that underlie their own freedoms. They aren’t adding their voices, they’re destroying the right of others to speak and act.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been the object of voluminous criticism for her handling of the protests and violence that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Activists have rallied at City Hall shouting demands for change. All that is part of what any mayor signs up for.
But when protesters began showing up in her Logan Square neighbourhood, trying to reach her home, the Chicago Police Department had every justification for blocking them out. There’s a difference between legitimate expression and targeted personal harassment aimed at the mayor and her family.
In what’s becoming too common a scene across the country, militancy is crowding out vigorous advocacy. Many recent protests for racial justice have attracted anarchists eager to throw rocks and bottles, damage property, loot stores and even attack innocent bystanders. In Washington, DC, Black Lives Matter protesters have encircled and shouted at random people dining outdoors at restaurants, demanding that they make gestures of support. After President Donald Trump’s convention speech last Thursday night, a hostile crowd surrounded Senator Rand Paul and his wife as they left the White House, and police had to escort the couple to safety. Paul said he feared for his life.
Is this the “tolerance” we so often hear about and see on bumper stickers from liberals and progressives?
The right has its own bad actors. In a May rally against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, demonstrators entered the state Capitol building carrying rifles and signs saying, “Tyrants get the rope,” and death threats against lawmakers were posted on social media.
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a former alderman put up a Facebook post urging fellow gun owners to bring their weapons to the city after it suffered riots, telling them: “This is what the 2nd Amendment was written for. We are at war in Kenosha.” A 17-year-old Illinoisan, Kyle Rittenhouse, was charged with shooting three people, two fatally, during the rioting. And Black Lives Matter activists marching from Milwaukee to the nation’s capital to protest police abuses encountered gun-wielding opponents and racial slurs; one was shot.
Developments like these raise the spectre of even greater and more lethal violence around political demonstrations.
The US has many problems that are fully deserving of the attention they are getting. But tactics aimed at injuring or scaring people will solve nothing and should be persecuted as much as the law allows. Civil, peaceful disagreement is indispensable to American system of democratic government. Now is the time to protect it.
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