Has the regeneracy arrived?

[pbrower2a]

With the qualification that this would be State legislation and would not pass Constitutional muster:

Quote:Destroying property is a crime. That’s true if the culprit is a single vandal, or a group of people involved in rioting. However, peaceful protesting is a protected right under the First Amendment. Maybe.

   A Republican Washington state senator who supported Donald Trump is proposing a bill that would slap an “economic terrorism” label on protest activities already prohibited by law and dramatically intensify their penalties.

Those activities earning a “terrorism” label go way beyond the kind of violence you might expect.

   The proposed bill would allow police to charge protesters who “block transportation and commerce, cause property damage, threaten jobs and put public safety at risk” with a class C felony.

Blocking traffic is a tactic often used to bring attention to protests. Currently, protesters who are arrested are charged with a misdemeanor and released, but a felony charge would bring significant fines and jail or probation. It can also result in at least temporary loss of voting rights and limit rights of association.

Terms like “threaten jobs and put public safety at risk” provide for an extremely wide interpretation. If protesters march past a store, are they “blocking commerce”? Is marching in any street potentially putting public safety at risk?

And if you think that you’re not at risk because you don’t get out and protest, think again …

   The Republican state senator said similar charges would apply to those who “fund, organize, sponsor” such protests, and the bill would force such individuals to “pay restitution up to triple the amount of economic damage” done.

The bill would make it possible to charge anyone who ever participated in a protest, or anyone who ever funded an organization that was involved in a protest, on the vaguest hint of “impeding business” or affecting “public safety.”

Yes, blocking traffic—either of vehicles or customers—is already a crime, but it’s one that’s rarely enforced and which results in relatively minor charges.

   In Washington state, intentionally interfering with or obstructing pedestrian or vehicle traffic can result in a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 90 days. Under Ericksen’s proposal to make these activities a class C felony, the same activity could result in five years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.

It’s no surprise that the author of this bill also contends that protesters against Trump have been secretly funded by “wealthy donors.”

When they’re characterizing the size and nature of whole protests, how hard would it be to destroy the lives of individual protesters?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/17...o-a-felony

However Donald Trump and his cronies might like this, the criminalization of protest is essential to tyranny, and typically a sign of the absence of democracy. That's how things were in the Soviet Union and in Chile under Pinochet. That's how things are in China today.

That's not to say that anyone can justify riot. Someone smashing into a storefront window, throwing a brick at a police officer, or torching a car during a lawful protest is simply a criminal who deserves the full measure of arrest, prosecution, and criminal sentencing. But this would be just the same at the Tournament of Roses Parade which has no political significance. If I were in a peaceful protest and I saw someone torch a car (how do I know that the car does not belong to a fellow protester?) and had a camera available, I might take some photos of incriminating deeds and supply the photos of such deeds to the police. Tough luck, rioter -- I want a civil society, and not lawlessness whether of a corrupt politician or of a street criminal. Of course a camera can record the violence of counter-protesters. (Counter-protesters may be the most dangerous people in a demonstration or protest, and they are one of the best reasons for a police presence at a protest or demonstration).  

So why would anyone participate in a street protest or demonstration? To restore civility in society and to remind our elected officials that they must remain accountable to those who elect them (and those who voted against them).