Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
Forget everything you’ve ever been taught about free speech in America.
It’s all a lie.
There can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force.
What is this language of force?
Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.
This is not the language of freedom.
This is not even the language of law and order.
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Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo.
Recently, this militarized exercise in intimidation reared its ugly head in the college town of Charlottesville, Va., where protesters who took to the streets to peacefully express their disapproval of a planned KKK rally were held at bay by implacable lines of gun-wielding riot police. Only after a motley crew of Klansmen had been safely escorted to and from the rally by black-garbed police did the assembled army of city, county and state police declare the public gathering unlawful and proceed to unleash canisters of tear gas on the few remaining protesters to force them to disperse.
To be clear, this is the treatment being meted out to protesters across the political spectrum.
The police state does not discriminate.
As a USA Today article notes, “People demanding justice, demanding accountability or demanding basic human rights without resorting to violence, should not be greeted with machine guns and tanks. Peaceful protest is democracy in action. It is a forum for those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised. Protesters should not have to face intimidation by weapons of war.”
A militarized police response to protesters poses a danger to all those involved, protesters and police alike. In fact, militarization makes police more likely to turn to violence to solve problems.
You want to turn a peaceful protest into a riot?
Bring in the militarized police with their guns and black uniforms and warzone tactics and “comply or die” mindset. Ratchet up the tension across the board. Take what should be a healthy exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turn it into a lesson in authoritarianism.
Frankly, any police officer who tells you that he needs tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray to do his job shouldn’t be a police officer in a constitutional republic.
All that stuff in the First Amendment sounds great in theory. However, it amounts to little more than a hill of beans if you have to exercise those freedoms while facing down an army of police equipped with deadly weapons.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
There are other, far better models to follow.
For instance, back in 2011, the St. Louis police opted to employ a passive response to Occupy St. Louis activists. First, police gave the protesters nearly 36 hours’ notice to clear the area, as opposed to the 20 to 60 minutes’ notice other cities gave. Then, as journalist Brad Hicks reports, when the police finally showed up:
They didn’t show up in riot gear and helmets, they showed up in shirt sleeves with their faces showing. They not only didn’t show up with SWAT gear, they showed up with no unusual weapons at all, and what weapons they had all securely holstered. They politely woke everybody up. They politely helped everybody who was willing to remove their property from the park to do so. They then asked, out of the 75 to 100 people down there, how many people were volunteering for being-arrested duty? Given 33 hours to think about it, and 10 hours to sweat it over, only 27 volunteered … and were escorted away by a handful of cops. The rest were advised to please continue to protest, over there on the sidewalk … and what happened next was the most absolutely brilliant piece of crowd control policing I have heard of in my entire lifetime. All of the cops who weren’t busy transporting and processing the voluntary arrestees lined up, blocking the stairs down into the plaza. They stood shoulder to shoulder. They kept calm and silent. They positioned the weapons on their belts out of sight. They crossed their hands low in front of them, in exactly the least provocative posture known to man. And they peacefully, silently, respectfully occupied the plaza, using exactly the same non-violent resistance techniques that the protesters themselves had been trained in.
As Forbes concluded, “This is a more humane, less costly, and ultimately more productive way to handle a protest. This is great proof that police can do it the old fashioned way – using their brains and common sense instead of tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray – and have better results.”
It can be done.
Police will not voluntarily give up their gadgets and war toys and combat tactics, however. Their training and inclination towards authoritarianism has become too ingrained.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if we are to have any hope of dismantling the police state, change must start locally, community by community. Citizens will have to demand that police de-escalate and de-militarize. And if the police don’t listen, contact your city councils and put the pressure on them.
Remember, they work for us. They might not like hearing it—they certainly won’t like being reminded of it—but we pay their salaries.
We must adopt a different mindset and follow a different path if we are to alter the outcome of these interactions with police.
The American dream was built on the idea that no one is above the law, that our rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away, and that our government and its appointed agents exist to serve us.
It may be that things are too far gone to save, but still we must try.
Doesn’t the KKK deserve to rally without fear of attack?
The po-po does the same thing for black lives DONT matter, asshole.
Po-po is nigger for Police. So you say that BLM are like the KKK and deserve the same official treatment? Does that also apply to Black’s organizations, actions, symbols, flags, speech, “music” and Memorial Statues? I didn’t think so Asshole…A Proud American Veteran and a Son of the South; I’ll just maintain my own civilized culture (which doesn’t matter to BLM), thank you.
“…this is the treatment being meted out to protesters across the political spectrum”.
Really? In what country?
What did the police do when it was the Antifa thugs burning, destroying, and looting?
Muslim rioters?
Germany?
Sweden?
France?
Fergusson?
Oakland?
Seattle?
NADA! “Stand down” they are told.
Sorry John…when it comes to the Antifa I think lock and load is in order.
What the Gooberment needs to do is go after folks like Soros who fund this crap
There must be more to this story in Charlottesville. I can come on here and call John a dumbfuk with a vagina and it’s free speech and no cop is going to beat me up. I can do the same thing in a peaceful assembly. But when some anarchist asshole behind me throws a bottle or rock at the cop or smashes a window I expect I’ll get pepper sprayed because it is no longer a peaceful assembly. Buckhed is right. Go after the fukers who promote that rioting. In this country 10 times out of 10, that promotion comes from liberal/progressive communist agitators.
I saw a blurb about this somewhere-the anti klan folks were not being peaceful.
“where protesters who took to the streets to peacefully express their disapproval of a planned KKK rally”
Peacefully express? Seriously? What part of the AntiFA terrorists’ violent anti-White riot was peaceful?
The police wanted to avoid another Hamburg-level event.
The KKK is a almost certainly nothing more than a FBI sockpuppet. You have to wonder if this was just to bait AntiFA into showing up. There is another event, some time next month, also in Charlottesville. That one might get really interesting.
I’ve been to nearly every Pro-life match in San Francisco for 12 years …not one arrest–no violence–peaceful..despite the vitriol coming from the opposition….The cops, some with protective gear, are friendly and kind…they come knowing the intent of marchers. Same with all the Tea Party and SOJ51 rallies I’ve participated in over the past several years. As a matter of fact the police only showed up to make sure we had no flags being held up with sticks..they left and never returned. I’ve been part of security teams that police up our groups, you get out of line you are removed…end of story. The intent of any protest or rally should dictate the measure of preparedness of law enforcement in protecting public property, private property and the public safety; and the past history of your group’s violence should play a large part in police security as well. If you wear masks, hoodies, bike locks and are carrying sticks as weapons your intent is to be violent. Police may transmit the same when they are in full battle gear but they usually are only reacting in a preparedness mindset to your groups history. The ugly part, as some have mentioned, are these ” stand down orders” to police. It sends the message to groups who are there to be violent, to be violent towards an opposing groups free speech. It is total bullshit to learn that law enforcement unit are given the order to stand down, this attitude allows violent people to enact their will on a free society exercising their freedom to assemble. At that point it doesn’t matter what the hell you wear, if your not there to enforce the law than it becomes a free-for-all. This happened in Ferguson when BLM were allowed to vent their angry by destroying private property, no policing….. except where members of Oath-Keepers were asked by private property owners to protect their businesses. No damage was done at these businesses, but destruction and looting occurred every where else, and police were there in riot gear but only to protect themselves. Private citizens protected private citizens despite federal agent snipers having their guns trained on Oath-Keepers. I guess it all comes down to “intent”, what is your groups intent, if it’s to peacefully assemble and protest an issue then you have the right to do so; but if the police show up with riot gear with the ” intent” to stop you, then it is…. “game on’.