Mueller Lake Park Outdoor Amphitheater
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RECEIVED Mon., Feb. 20, 2017
Dear Editor,
In the otherwise informative article, "Enemies of the State," [News, Feb. 17] Joseph Caterine seems to have a failure to appreciate the free speech rights of peaceful protesters who hold icky opinions, or saw how his editorial choices might come across to the more moderate readers of the Chron. The article talks about a Trump supporter holding a "Fuck Your Feelings" sign at an anti-Trump march toward the state Capitol on Nov. 13.
The article then quotes Josh Pineda, who said the protester was "intentionally there to disrupt," as if that was something outside the scope of civil society. Of course, the people marching toward the Capitol were also intentionally trying to disrupt (aka "protesting") the upcoming Trump inauguration.
The article continues: "Somebody knocked [his] hat off," said Pineda. "Some people took his sign and ripped it up." But "absolutely nobody," he said, waged any bodily assault on the man.
Note that earlier in the article, it mentions that several of these people not-bodily-assaulting this lone protester were wearing masks, and the picture accompanying the article shows an example of those masks, someone wearing a red mask emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle, with, in bold print, a quote from a spokesperson for those Red Guards: "We don't seek to come to power through elections. We believe in armed struggle with mass participation."
The article then implies that it was uncalled for when those witnessing this act went to nearby state troopers to ask them to intervene (with the subsequent overuse of force that one might realistically expect from armed agents of the state).
Perhaps this article might have been given a much different take if this thought experiment had taken place by the Chron's editorial staff before publishing: "If a bunch of radical right-wingers were marching on the state Capitol to protest, say, Obama's 2008 inauguration, and a lone Obama supporter was holding up a sign saying 'Fuck Your Feelings,' and a scrum of the marchers, some masked and wearing neo-Nazi emblems on the masks, converged on the person and knocked off their hat and ripped up their sign, but they hadn't yet gotten around to bodily assaulting this person – would that be OK? Should bystanders placidly accept this violent response to a peaceful protester?"
The point of the First Amendment is to protect even odious speech we vehemently disagree with – saying stuff that everyone agrees with doesn't need 1A protection.
In the otherwise informative article, "Enemies of the State," [News, Feb. 17] Joseph Caterine seems to have a failure to appreciate the free speech rights of peaceful protesters who hold icky opinions, or saw how his editorial choices might come across to the more moderate readers of the Chron. The article talks about a Trump supporter holding a "Fuck Your Feelings" sign at an anti-Trump march toward the state Capitol on Nov. 13.
The article then quotes Josh Pineda, who said the protester was "intentionally there to disrupt," as if that was something outside the scope of civil society. Of course, the people marching toward the Capitol were also intentionally trying to disrupt (aka "protesting") the upcoming Trump inauguration.
The article continues: "Somebody knocked [his] hat off," said Pineda. "Some people took his sign and ripped it up." But "absolutely nobody," he said, waged any bodily assault on the man.
Note that earlier in the article, it mentions that several of these people not-bodily-assaulting this lone protester were wearing masks, and the picture accompanying the article shows an example of those masks, someone wearing a red mask emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle, with, in bold print, a quote from a spokesperson for those Red Guards: "We don't seek to come to power through elections. We believe in armed struggle with mass participation."
The article then implies that it was uncalled for when those witnessing this act went to nearby state troopers to ask them to intervene (with the subsequent overuse of force that one might realistically expect from armed agents of the state).
Perhaps this article might have been given a much different take if this thought experiment had taken place by the Chron's editorial staff before publishing: "If a bunch of radical right-wingers were marching on the state Capitol to protest, say, Obama's 2008 inauguration, and a lone Obama supporter was holding up a sign saying 'Fuck Your Feelings,' and a scrum of the marchers, some masked and wearing neo-Nazi emblems on the masks, converged on the person and knocked off their hat and ripped up their sign, but they hadn't yet gotten around to bodily assaulting this person – would that be OK? Should bystanders placidly accept this violent response to a peaceful protester?"
The point of the First Amendment is to protect even odious speech we vehemently disagree with – saying stuff that everyone agrees with doesn't need 1A protection.
Jim Henshaw
