I went to some palestine protests a while back, and was talking to my brother about the organizing, when revealed something I found pretty shocking, we (the protesters) had acquired a permit to hold the protest. Apparently this is standard policy across the US.
More recently, my University is also having protests, and in their policy, they also require explicit approval for what they call “expressive activity”. I’m pretty sure not having a permit has been used as an excuse to arrest students in some other campuses.
My question is as the title, doesn’t this fundamentally contradict the US’s ideals of free speech? What kind of right needs an extra permit to exercise it?
When I was talking to my brother, he also expressed a couple more points:
- The city will pretty much grant all permits, so it’s more of a polite agreement in most cases
- If we can get a permit (which we did) why shouldn’t we?
I’m assuming this is because of legal reasons, they pretty much have to grant all permits.
Except I think this makes it all worse. If the government grants almost all permits, then the few rare times it doesn’t:
- The protest is instantly de-legitimized due to not having a permit
- There’s little legal precedent for the protesters to challenge this
And then of course there’s the usual slippery slope argument. You’re giving the government a tool they could expand later to oppress you further. Maybe they start with the groups most people don’t like and go up from there.
The fact that the permit requires approval, whether it is always approved or not, it is still a permission to practice your free speech. Instead, it should be a notice by the people. This will allow the government to prepare for it. On the other hand, this notice should merely be a formality and not necessary.
In a real democracy, people should always have the right to practice their free speech that serves to protect the masses from exploitation or being oppressed. Furthermore, all public spaces are open to protest, whether they are in the middle of the street, in public squares, parks, inside and outside of government buildings, etc. The obstruction to traffic or anything else is merely a tool for the ruling class to act out violence against the peaceful protestors.
All universities, schools, and other places of knowledge whether public or private should be exempt from trespassing laws for the protestors.
People like to get technical about acting on your free speech versus right to free speech. This is a BS arguments that supports no one but the ruling classes.
In a real democracy, people have the power and government serves to obey the people, sadly, this is not the case in the US, and anyone that thinks otherwise are simply opportunist in the capitalist system or given in to the capitalist democracy propaganda.
Problem is, there’s a vocal minority convinced education is bad. Can you imagine the havoc if they could shut down any university without consequence?
I mean maybe that would force the rest of us to actually take them as a serious threat instead of just letting them schedule big speeches on campuses that attract a bunch of out of town fans of theirs and financially organize.
I don’t entirely agree: in a real democracy, government is an extension of people. They are hired brutes and managers that do the job that people tell them to do. So what if the majority of people collectively don’t want mass protests at the universities? Or that they want to be protected from masses of people randomly obstructing traffic?
Yes, it is possible for a government to use those restrictions as means of oppression: when people don’t even agree with those laws, but the government tries to shut the protesters down regardless. In such a case, a permit doesn’t even matter: just go out without a permit, because the government does not represent the people. If there were no permits, they would find some other loopholes to try and shut the protesters down: COVID restrictions, endangerment, (staged) complaints from neighbours, provocation etc. In Belarus, Russia, or Iran, they have millions of excuses ready to why all the protesters must go home or be arrested, the lack of permit isn’t even that common these days.
P.S. Also wanna point out: I’m not from the US.
What you’re describing sounds like a classic case of the tyranny of the majority
I don’t see it that way, but okay. And tyranny of majority could be interpreted twofold here: it’s probably a tyranny for the majority against protesters to tell them that they can’t protest at the university, but it’s also tyranny of majority for 10000 protesters to tell 1000 students of a university that they don’t care about their wish to study in peace? No?
Surely if you live in Iran or something just as oppressive, protesting against the government is probably more important than studies and even in the eventual best interests of students. But at that point (as I mentioned), permits and restrictions are irrelevant: go protest in Iran without a permit regardless or whatever. You don’t need to take opinions of something as ridiculous as Iranian government into account.
Sure, though I’ve never heard of a protesters being the majority
Most permits are approved. That makes all the difference. If it was all, that wouldn’t really be a permit
Well, what if someone decides to throw a mass protest by a daycare facility, or at a national park? Or in a way that makes the lives of locals unbearable? So I imagine yes, there are circumstances where a permit isn’t approved. I imagine when it’s not, the government should propose a way to change the protest (e.g., it’s location) to make it approvable. But what if protesters don’t want to budge?
Look, I am aware that oppressive governments use it as an excuse to shut down unwanted critique. I’m just saying that inherently, there’s nothing wrong with this kind of approval, and I’m sure that if we went through it, you would agree that there are circumstances where a permit shouldn’t be approved. Oh, and if a government is oppressive, they’ll find a way to forbid the protest even without those permits. COVID-restrictions, for example, have been a common excuse lately in some countries. Would you say that genuine COVID-restrictions are unacceptable overall and are a tool of oppressive governments?
I see protests as being fundamentally being disruptive of the law and order. The US seems to have made them work within the law, but that seems a very tenous position, as it ad odds with the nature of protests. That’s how I see it at least.
You can say that about any tool of power or oppression
Maybe, maybe not. In the case of covid, you could say my right to free speech does not override your right to life, which is not really comparable to your right to visit a national park. With the current state of covid I’d say it is not dangerous enough to restrict my right to protest
A lot of laws that are very necessary are tools of oppression, at least potentially. Yet no one is arguing that they should go. I guess my main point here is: it’s best to describe the law in terms of its necessity. Is it necessary or useful to require pre-notification/approval of all mass meetings of people (regardless of the purpose even)? I think it might be useful. Is it necessary to have SOME regulations in place for mass meeting (like forbidding them around daycare facilities, for an obvious example)? I think definitely yes. Now, if a government was actually oppressive and unrepresentative of people, and the only way to protest was to do it at a daycare facility - I would support it, but such circumstances are extreme and at that point permits and approval is irrelevant: if the government spits on people, you can spit at its permits.
Thanks. btw you gotta add a newline otherwise lemmy will format your comment as part of the blockquote