Comment by happythomist
6 years ago
Actually, the op-ed states:
> Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants. But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence.
Setting aside whether using the Insurrection Act to respond to rioting and looting is an appropriate response, it is quite clear that Tom Cotton is not advocating the use of the the military to "suppress political dissent", which would obviously violate the First Amendment.
This gets confusing, because many (including cotton elsewhere) intentionally blurred the lines between protestors and "rioters", and stood behind plans that served to suppress peaceful protest.
People on this forum are usually quick to remark that free speech is powerful and important and worth protecting even at great cost to individuals. Property damage caused by a small number of violent actors falls into this category, especially when the majority of the protests were peaceful and actively discouraged property damage.
So yes, Cotton's plan would have served to suppress political dissent and therefore probably violated the first amendment (and the third). Printing a sitting senator advocating for violating multiple constitutional rights without a disclaimer to that effect is a disservice to nyts readers.
Destroying things that do not belong to you is not free speech.
Bringing the military in on stopping it is crossing the Rubicon. In as literal a sense as you can get without living in Italy. Regardless of feelings on the current situation, the idea of getting the military involved should be extremely unsettling to anyone living in a democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Rubicon
For a more contemporary quote from battlestar galactica:
Adama: There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
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I never said it was. I said it was a cost to protect free speech. Do you believe that Cotton, the Police, or the National guard will be able to stop only those looting without accidentally arresting, shooting or otherwise harassing anyone who is simply protesting?
Do you believe deployment of the national guard won't have a chilling effect on people protesting? If you want to protect the speech (or in this case assembly) of the many, you have to be willing to suffer the consequences of the few who will abuse that right.
Otherwise, implicitly, what you're saying is that (a relatively small amount of) property is more valuable than the right to protest an unjust government.
> Destroying things that do not belong to you is not free speech.
Note: that's exactly what the Boston Tea Party did. Protesting by destroying things that do not belong to you has a long, celebrated history in America.
> it is quite clear that Tom Cotton is not advocating the use of the the military to "suppress political dissent"
That's wrong. Regardless of how you feel about the tactics used by the protesters, their dissent is clearly political in nature, and Cotton was advocating stopping their demonstrations with the military. It's a terrible mistake to misunderstand or sugar-coat his message and you shouldn't do it.
I thought it was fairly clear "suppress political dissent" was referring to the suppression of peaceful political dissent, and I was responding to that claim.
>...their dissent is clearly political in nature, and Cotton was advocating stopping their demonstrations with the military.
Calling the burning of buildings, the vandalism of public buildings and monuments, and the violence we've seen "political in nature" is really quite something. It's very revealing in terms of what the end goal is.
> It's very revealing in terms of what the end goal is.
I wonder what "end goal" you believe has been revealed, beyond the obvious: the reduction in unjustified police violence that is the subject of the protests. My sense is that you might have misinterpreted my comment.
Protesting police abuses is a political act, i.e., relating to the government or the public affairs of a country. This is true whether you're talking about a purely nonviolent demonstration or one that gets completely out of control.
>> A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.
> ...it is quite clear that Tom Cotton is not advocating the use of the the military to "suppress political dissent"...
Eh, I'm not totally convinced. The devil is in the details, and there have been many cases recently where clearly peaceful protesters were treated like rioters when it was convenient to some of Cotton's allies.
The insidious part of suppressing dissenting opinions is that it gives carte blanche to lie about what those opinions were.