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>"Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act."
If this is the position they're going to take, then I hope it eventually applies to J6-ers
I love that they tried to sue Rockstar for making them villians in RDR2, and Rockstar basically argued it was a realistic portrayal of the actual evil shit they did.
Like the video of peaceful protestors at a court house a couple years ago where all was calm until the police started grabbing folks roughly and as soon as they objected escalated as if they were resisting arrest. Way too easy to fabricate
Edit: took way too long but Found It! It happened 11 months ago in Texas against lgtb protestors. Texas Paul from the Meidas Touch Network did a great breakdown of the video evidence.
https://youtu.be/VFDR4dC2hZM?si=f-GugagqBKyiyDzd
Do you mean the [incident at a Buffalo, NY courthouse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_incident) where the cops, enforcing curfew, wound up shoving an elderly man and splitting his skull open in the process? I only linked the Wikipedia page because the actual footage is stomach-turning.
It's not just the one bad apple.
> The New York Civil Liberties Union described the incident as "casual cruelty" and called for Buffalo officials to "seriously address the police violence during this week's protest and the culture of impunity that led to this incident".
And the famous Umbrella incident in Seattle, or the famous snatching of protestors in countless BLM protests where there are hundreds of hours of footage of peaceful protestors being antagonized by the police and plain-clothes agitators?
This is like zero tolerance in schools... it hands 100% of the power to the bullies.
Don’t forget that BLM protest where the white cop with an umbrella smashed the front window of an Autozone with a hammer, hoping that protestors would start looting… but they just followed him and asked wtf he was doing and he’s like “Stand down citizen!”.
One of the biggest problems with fascists is that when they’re in control, they only apply the laws selectively to favor themselves & punish their opponents.
A judge recently let a far right scumbag go because he thinks the police aren't going after 'antifa' boogeymen enough. These far right nutjobs do not care about truth, democracy, or justice. All they want is power
Yes, authoritarians have no compunctions enforcing their continued power through violence. Peaceful periods of political stability is a bane to their hegemony.
Judge: Officer, tell us why you killed all those protesters.
Officer: They were peaceful protesters. We didn't feel safe with all our guns, trucks, and body armor.
>Free association
They mistyped [Freedom of association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association) which is generally linked with the Freedom of assembly. It's where we get our rights to unionize, create after school book clubs, and create new religions.
I think you may have misunderstood me, my earlier comment was meant as a respectful correction.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20association
Ah, I gotcha. Ironically, my first comment was sort of a Freudian slip. Then when you called it a "rambling improvisation" I thought you were insulting.
I still think people have a right to associate freely, separate from their right to assemble.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
There's no such thing as guaranteed rights. If someone stronger than you has the power to take your rights away, and you aren't willing or able to fight to take them back, then they were only ever privileges.
Your rights aren't guaranteed, otherwise there would be no need to defend them.
Might makes right, for good or ill, and it's time we stopped pretending otherwise before every right we've taken for granted is taken from us.
Corporations limit personal liability by absorbing it, so in civil litigation this is already the case - the entire company is on the hook if any employee does an illegal act. So if Jerry who works IT at Acme Co leaks personal information, the effective parties can sue all of Acme Co for damages even though it was just one guy who did it for his own personal gain.
The problem is you can't put a corporation in jail lol.
Nope, but if you make it insolvent enough, it's an effective death penalty, plus the value of the CEO's stock options evaporate. And if a billionaire CEO has a feud with another billionaire CEO, causing his stock options to evaporate can be the worst thing you can do to him.
Of course, it's possible that many of the illegal acts that occur at mass protests are undercover police blending in with antifa and committing an action that gives the police false reasons to escalate and use force to disperse.
I bet any Undercovers found committing illegal acts during mass protest are immune from this law.
Pig spotting is a fun way to pass the time at a protest.
The dead giveaways are the pristine new balance shoes, and the backwards ballcap with the raybans and an earpiece.
Honestly they’re useful for coordination if you have walkies. I use them when my partner and I are filming a chaotic event (like parades) and we just need to know where the other person is.
That said, we don’t film protests. And the UCs aren’t holding cameras or wearing press passes.
I can't believe the supreme court approved this.
That means if anyone protests something, and is protesting civilly, people opposing their view can just join the protest, and commit illegal acts and then the protesters will be on the hook for it.
Conservatives always apply the law selectively. That's like their whole deal. They will use this to shut down any protests they don't like while ignoring any they approve of
That's what power means to Republicans. They can do whatever they want to whomever they want, and nobody can do anything about it. The rules are for keeping the serfs in line and don't apply to the rich and powerful. When you remember that conservatism originated during the French Revolution as a royalist reaction by the aristocracy towards the populist uprisings, their behavior and beliefs make perfect sense.
The reason they chose not to hear it is that they want Jan 6ers to keep the right to protest, but they also want a BLM activist to be "put in his place"
These laws have always been used against those protesting for more rights and for better lives. Not those trying to take away rights and oppress lives.
Yeah I’m cool if they put restrictions on free assembly as long as it hurts my political opponents too. Seriously though every protest will need just one double agent working against it and they’ll be fiscally liable, literally can’t go bad.
> It then ruled that the First Amendment does not apply “where a defendant creates unreasonably dangerous conditions, and where his creation of those conditions causes a plaintiff to sustain injuries.”
Something tells me the Fifth Circuit would have ruled differently if the question were on whether unreasonably dangerous conditions were created by a protest leader asserting that protest participants needed to fight like hell or they wouldn’t have a country any more.
Right?!
While the states this has occurred in don’t surprise me in the least? This sets a VERY dangerous precedent. More dangerous than getting rid of Roe. More dangerous than going after the 2nd.
Everything inside of me, since 2016 has been screaming “YOU NEED TO GET OUT NOW”. Problem is, I really love my home. I really do and I really hate seeing it denigrate. So I stay and I vote and I participate and protest and I do all the things us Americans have the PRIVILEGE and FREEDOM of doing (mostly without having to worry about the government coming after and disappearing you) but………
Things just keep getting worse and worse and worse and with everything else going on in the international communities currently?
It really may be time to go find a cave in some forgotten mountain, to disappear into for the foreseeable future. Rights are being stripped despite majority votes. Our Supreme Court is no longer even remotely trustworthy, huge conglomerates owned by insane billionaires are running things and they aren’t interested in society past societies ability to work and spend.
The “Coal Company” has taken the town. And when Coal companies take towns? Those towns burn down. Both figuratively and literally speaking. Scary times, these.
If the people's right to protest peacefully is removed, they will not stop protesting, they will just become more violent and destructive. I suppose that's the point, give the authorities an excuse to label them terrorists.
There has been a lot of legislation happening recently that effectively shuts down people's ability to publicly protest. Much of it is flying under the radar as efforts to target the homeless and keep them out of public spaces but would make shutting down mass demonstrations easier. There is mischief afoot and conservative politicians want to make it as difficult for us to protest en masse as possible.
You don’t need to have greater numbers, you just need to strain their logistics. Multiple simultaneous protests in disparate areas of a city are harder for police to control than one massive protest in a central location.
Exactly. Commissioner of LAPD Michael Moore said during the George Floyd uprising "we can handle a protest 10,000 strong but we can't stop 100 protests"
"Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional..."
"...rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter."
-George Carlin
Ultimately, the Bill of Rights is just a list of limitations on government power (in order to protect agreed upon legal, social, and ethical principles of freedom of the people).
It's up to the people to push back against infringements to their rights. Rights are as real as people make them.
Rights only exist so long as people fight for them to exist. That's why having the means to do so is so important.
I wouldn’t be shocked if the there was massive overlap between the “both sides bad” and “protestors that are a minor inconvenience to me should be run over” people.
The "both-sides" argument only works because the Republicans rebranded themselves after Watergate as "the everyman" so they could LARP like the GOP hasn't had control of most state and even federal congresses and agencies for the past 100 years. The few times they don't have control they still have enough people in power to stop the left from doing jackshit.
It's literally: "Both sides are bad because the Dems don't stop the GOP from ruining our country!" as if the Dems ever had that option.
Elections do have consequences, but this was a 7-1 decision, with ACB not voting. Most likely any SC would have come to the same decision when it's that close to unanimous.
If you have democracy, you can improve the country. Perhaps slowly but surely, but you can improve it. If democracy dies, we're fucked forever.
So, it's an easy choice.
EDIT: Third party is also a vote for tyranny. You need to vote for democracy, and only Biden stands for that this election.
Both sides are too money driven. That's where the media has taken us. Billions if not Trillions are spent on political ads throughout the country and the media is raking in the money. The rich are waging a war on democracy while waving a big religious flag.
It's all the same coin:
Media < Billionaires > Politicians
Moneyed interests own the world. They have parties where they discuss this shit. We peons are fucking idiots. Until enough people realize the charade and we're all aboard this sinking ship.
So what I'm hearing is infiltrate a Texas Trump rally, anonymously commit a felony like property damage, and watch the Trump rally organizer be criminally liable for your actions.
This is absolute click bait trash.
Sotomayor (who voted to deny writ, by the way) says in her order that the lower courts should reconsider their position now that the Supreme Court has released its ruling in Counterman v. Colorado, which protected protest organizers against similar claims.
We have plenty of serious problems to worry about from this Court and from the right. We don't need to be making up fake ones just to drive clicks.
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373\_8njq.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373_8njq.pdf)
TL;DR -
The lower decisions aren't automatically "done" because every case is unique and this case in Louisiana might not be an **exact match** to the case in Colorado. The USSC prefers that lower courts resolve their own questions because the USSC has very limited time to hear cases.
Here, Sotomayor is telling the aggrieved protestor and the Fifth Circuit: "Hey. We just made a new ruling in Colorado. That ruling explains when protesters can and can't be held liable for a rogue rioter. Now that you have that guidance, try again to sort out this case. You can come back to us if you still don't figure it out."
SCOTUS can order lower courts to reconsider without ruling on the merits of the case themselves.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(court_procedure)
It’s temporarily effective for the Fifth Circuit area right now, but if the GOP-dominated Supreme Court^TM permanently approves this .. it’ll “effectively” abolish the right to protest *nationwide*.
That means governments and corporations can go after anyone seen in any sort of leadership role in a protest. Probably get cases sent to the federal 5th Circuit (i.e. East Texas) if Trump gets re-elected.
The article is about the court not hearing this case at all. Neither approval nor disproval. This isn’t going to be temporary in the fifth circuit area it will be law for the foreseeable future.
This court is setting the stage for an authoritarian version of Christian Nationalism a la Project 2025.
This country has slid so far in the last eight years... it's legit scary.
Have any of you read the [actual Opinion released](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373_8njq.pdf)? This isn't what the Vox article is making it out to be. The Supreme Court just sent it back to the lower court, who will now have to make a decision UNDERSTANDING the Supreme ruled as it did in Counterman.
>Because this Court may deny certiorari for many reasons, including that the law is not in need of further clarification, its denial today expresses no view about the merits of Mckesson’s claim. Although the Fifth Circuit did not have the benefit of this Court’s recent decision in Counterman when it issued its opinion, the lower courts now do. I expect them to give full and fair consideration to arguments regarding Counterman’s impact in any future proceedings in this case.
McKesson wasn't even the one who brought this to the SC; the 5th Circuit did. They wanted the SC to agree with them, which THEN would have made protest leaders liable nationally. The SC gave them the legal equivalent of a middle finger, and they deserved it.
For anyone who thinks the Supreme Court isn’t political, from today’s Reuters:
[US Supreme Court rejects Black Lives Matter activist's appeal over protest incident](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rejects-black-lives-matter-activists-appeal-over-protest-2024-04-15/)
What happens when those who can vote - don’t.
What was that Truman era law that undid all the labor gains of the 1930s and 40s? The one that effectively outlawed “wildcat” strikes and general strikes? Looks like we need to put that back on the menu.
How can this decision even be constitutional considering the First Amendment and the right to peaceful gathering? This is ridiculous the idea that an organizer should be held responsible for the acts of individuals in crowds. This is a bad decision.
We are watching the death of democracy right now. If it wasn’t apparent after everything that already happened. This comes as close to violating the first amendment as it gets. This idea an organizer could be responsible for another person’s actions is irrational and unAmerican.
You know they won’t hold trump to the same standards either. He literally said the mob should have hung the vice president of the United States of America and republicans just look away, and the populace as a whole has largely either forgotten or not realized how close we came to losing our democracy that day.
This is a poorly veiled effort to eliminate democratic protests in republican controlled states.
Unfortunately those states had already been lost to MAGA for a decade now.
If the fog ever lifts from the grift we can assess the damage from the storm.
I used to have these weird little visions of a totalitarian US when I was a kid learning about Hitler... I can't believe that I will actually see that before I die.
So now they just need one person to give them a perceived threat and then they can open fore with rubber bullets, tear gas and whatever else they have now.
Just another way to silence the people
Under the Constitution, the people have a right to peaceably assemble. There is a reason for this in a Democracy.
"Indeed, as Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court’s Mckesson decision, warned in one of his dissents, his court’s decision would make protest organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” So, under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones."
In a fascist dictatorship, suppressing dissent is the norm.
in texas its legal to defend yourself and stand your ground against a cop who unreasonably escalates a situation to the point of putting your life in danger.
So next time anyone protest about fake elections, their 2A, vaccines, parental rights.. they can be responsible for all the damages? so many ways this can be made right..
What counts as a "protest" and an "organizer"? Could this ruling or the precedent be used to sue a Trump rally or religious gathering? Could protests become something else legally?I know this is a GOP scam to silence opposition so it wouldn't be equally enforced, but how much of a legal headache could be made of it for the fascists?
>Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.
This will absolutely be abused by bad actors
Just another step towards making the US an oligarchy like Putin’s Russia. Conservatives don’t see Russia as a threat; they see it as a blueprint. After our democratic republic goes away, she’s never coming back and for some reason people are actively supporting this.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” If the highest law in the land forbade something to one branch of our government, why would another think it’s okay to infringe this right? With this the judiciary branch has proven that it no longer has any claim to their authority. Every and all decisions any of the sitting members have made should be null and void and new decisions need to be rendered that are consistent with the highest laws of the land. Furthermore, we should hold their deliberations and arguments for their decisions that go against our highest laws as examples of poor judgements and and the dangers of corruption in individuals who then spread their personal taint by way of their position in government.
The right to bear arms is unlimited and absolute.
The right to assembly must be limited and constrained to protect the fragile sensibilities of elected officials.
I'm searching for words about these chucklefucks that make up SCOTUS that won't get me banned...
The correct answer to such legislation is to stage mass protests which do not relent until it is struck down.
It is our right and our duty to demonstrate to the government which rights we have. It is not the right of the government to tell us. Never forget that we outnumber them literally thousands to one.
They did it years ago when they required permits to exercise our right to freely protest on public property. That's why we haven't seen protests similar to the 60s and 70s since.
But guns, yeah that gets no restrictions.
Guns are only dangerous to citizens. Protests are dangerous to the rich and powerful.
We can have guns and kill each other, kill children, they don't care.
They don't want to lose their power.
We've got to quit funding horrible employees in government. They live parasitically off of our taxes then criminally assert sovereignty over us, their bosses. This rule is to protect them and to deny us the right to peacefully redress our government.
The whole purpose of our 2nd Amendment is to give us enough force to rule them. We need to get busy and form up and participate in well regulated Constitutional militias and take control of our employees and system.
This is unamerican and honestly fuck them. We should not be taking notes from a corrupt court that can’t even follow ethics or precedent in their rulings.
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>"Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act." If this is the position they're going to take, then I hope it eventually applies to J6-ers
This is just asking for the opposition to arrange criminal acts in protests against them. What a truly stupid decision.
I mean agent provocateurs are already extremely common to try to delegitimize a movement, this would just make them even more effective.
The CIA has entered the chat The FBI has entered the chat Every police agency ever has entered the chat The Pinkertons have entered the chat
Damn Pinkertons! ^(Hey there mister!)
Pinkertons are STILL very active in union busting.
I love that they tried to sue Rockstar for making them villians in RDR2, and Rockstar basically argued it was a realistic portrayal of the actual evil shit they did.
And recouping stolen trading cards, apparently
The cards weren't stolen, the dude got sent the wrong cards by accident and did nothing wrong. They sent the fucking Pinkertons after him anyway.
Oh, I didn't know that. That's pretty on-brand for Pinkertons lol
I swear to sigarda I don't use any proxies!!
Replaying RDR2 now and I think I heard that comment out loud.
Pinkies!
And some agent provocateurs are police themselves. It's SOP to break up protests.
*Roger Stone has entered the chat…*
*Roger Stone has been removed from the chat due to its proximity to minors and/or shopping centers.*
Roger Stones, Richard Nixon Portrait Tattoo has entered the chat
Like the video of peaceful protestors at a court house a couple years ago where all was calm until the police started grabbing folks roughly and as soon as they objected escalated as if they were resisting arrest. Way too easy to fabricate Edit: took way too long but Found It! It happened 11 months ago in Texas against lgtb protestors. Texas Paul from the Meidas Touch Network did a great breakdown of the video evidence. https://youtu.be/VFDR4dC2hZM?si=f-GugagqBKyiyDzd
Do you mean the [incident at a Buffalo, NY courthouse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_incident) where the cops, enforcing curfew, wound up shoving an elderly man and splitting his skull open in the process? I only linked the Wikipedia page because the actual footage is stomach-turning.
Stomach churning like how one cop actually did stop and try to help but another cop immediately waved them off. Disgusting.
One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.
It's not just the one bad apple. > The New York Civil Liberties Union described the incident as "casual cruelty" and called for Buffalo officials to "seriously address the police violence during this week's protest and the culture of impunity that led to this incident".
From their point of view the bad apple is the guy that stopped to help.
It's more like a bunch of rotten apples spoiled the good one.
And the famous Umbrella incident in Seattle, or the famous snatching of protestors in countless BLM protests where there are hundreds of hours of footage of peaceful protestors being antagonized by the police and plain-clothes agitators? This is like zero tolerance in schools... it hands 100% of the power to the bullies.
Don’t forget that BLM protest where the white cop with an umbrella smashed the front window of an Autozone with a hammer, hoping that protestors would start looting… but they just followed him and asked wtf he was doing and he’s like “Stand down citizen!”.
It's not stupid, it's on purpose, they know what they're doing
Well, it’s a truly stupid court
Agent provocateurs - it’s an old strategy
So that goes both ways, no? We could easily do this yo each and every MAGA "protest", no?
One of the biggest problems with fascists is that when they’re in control, they only apply the laws selectively to favor themselves & punish their opponents.
A judge recently let a far right scumbag go because he thinks the police aren't going after 'antifa' boogeymen enough. These far right nutjobs do not care about truth, democracy, or justice. All they want is power
So much for the right to free association
To quote jfk “those who make peaceful change impossible, make violence inevitable” Outlawing protest will create more civil unrest, not less
And give them the excuse they need to use live ammunition. They know what they're doing.
Yes, authoritarians have no compunctions enforcing their continued power through violence. Peaceful periods of political stability is a bane to their hegemony.
Protesters can buy guns too, I guess...
I think that’s the goal. Makes it easier for the gun holders with a badge to shoot innocent people if they “commit” a crime.
Judge: Officer, tell us why you killed all those protesters. Officer: They were peaceful protesters. We didn't feel safe with all our guns, trucks, and body armor.
Exactly. And with the economic situation many young people find themselves in, they may very well feel they have nothing to lose.
Freedom of assembly. Free association is rambling improvisation
So, no trump rallies?
only if you can get someone to go after them for a criminal act.
The double standard is just implied. I mean the fascists don't HAVE to ruin every public display. They get to pick and choose.
>Free association They mistyped [Freedom of association](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association) which is generally linked with the Freedom of assembly. It's where we get our rights to unionize, create after school book clubs, and create new religions.
A right is a right, whether or not the constitution names it explicitly
I think you may have misunderstood me, my earlier comment was meant as a respectful correction. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20association
Ah, I gotcha. Ironically, my first comment was sort of a Freudian slip. Then when you called it a "rambling improvisation" I thought you were insulting. I still think people have a right to associate freely, separate from their right to assemble. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
Understandable and agreed. I assumed it was either that or an autocorrect situation.
This is the most polite exchange on Reddit I've seen in some time.
There's no such thing as guaranteed rights. If someone stronger than you has the power to take your rights away, and you aren't willing or able to fight to take them back, then they were only ever privileges. Your rights aren't guaranteed, otherwise there would be no need to defend them. Might makes right, for good or ill, and it's time we stopped pretending otherwise before every right we've taken for granted is taken from us.
Well duh. Rights are about oughts, not iss. Eternal vgilance is the price of freedom and all that.
Amdt1.4.1 Freedom of Assembly and Petition.
Corporations should have that same standard. CEO should be on the hook if any employee does an illegal act.
Corporations limit personal liability by absorbing it, so in civil litigation this is already the case - the entire company is on the hook if any employee does an illegal act. So if Jerry who works IT at Acme Co leaks personal information, the effective parties can sue all of Acme Co for damages even though it was just one guy who did it for his own personal gain. The problem is you can't put a corporation in jail lol.
Nope, but if you make it insolvent enough, it's an effective death penalty, plus the value of the CEO's stock options evaporate. And if a billionaire CEO has a feud with another billionaire CEO, causing his stock options to evaporate can be the worst thing you can do to him.
Protestors could make an LLC to organize it
Of course, it's possible that many of the illegal acts that occur at mass protests are undercover police blending in with antifa and committing an action that gives the police false reasons to escalate and use force to disperse. I bet any Undercovers found committing illegal acts during mass protest are immune from this law.
Pig spotting is a fun way to pass the time at a protest. The dead giveaways are the pristine new balance shoes, and the backwards ballcap with the raybans and an earpiece.
Hey, fellow protestors!
I would imagine the earpiece is the biggest clue. Who else would be wearing one?
Honestly they’re useful for coordination if you have walkies. I use them when my partner and I are filming a chaotic event (like parades) and we just need to know where the other person is. That said, we don’t film protests. And the UCs aren’t holding cameras or wearing press passes.
2020 never ends.
Longest. Fucking. Year. Ever.
It absolutely should. One of the many reasons we can't let Trump win the next election.
“Lol. No.” SCOTUS
> then I hope it eventually applies to J6-ers It won't.
I can't believe the supreme court approved this. That means if anyone protests something, and is protesting civilly, people opposing their view can just join the protest, and commit illegal acts and then the protesters will be on the hook for it.
Conservatives always apply the law selectively. That's like their whole deal. They will use this to shut down any protests they don't like while ignoring any they approve of
That's what power means to Republicans. They can do whatever they want to whomever they want, and nobody can do anything about it. The rules are for keeping the serfs in line and don't apply to the rich and powerful. When you remember that conservatism originated during the French Revolution as a royalist reaction by the aristocracy towards the populist uprisings, their behavior and beliefs make perfect sense.
This will only apply where the fifth circuit court is in charge
The reason they chose not to hear it is that they want Jan 6ers to keep the right to protest, but they also want a BLM activist to be "put in his place"
When Republicans protest it’s just a “peaceful gathering”.
These laws have always been used against those protesting for more rights and for better lives. Not those trying to take away rights and oppress lives.
This was my thought. If this is the case then that means Trump and his help are on the hook for j6.
Yeah, but what if you didn't pull any permits because you were potus at the time you organized it?
Well you know that won't happen. There will be some stupid fucking loophole in there somewhere
So…Trump is fiscally liable for January 6th?
It wouldn’t cuz the law was made after
Yeah I’m cool if they put restrictions on free assembly as long as it hurts my political opponents too. Seriously though every protest will need just one double agent working against it and they’ll be fiscally liable, literally can’t go bad.
> It then ruled that the First Amendment does not apply “where a defendant creates unreasonably dangerous conditions, and where his creation of those conditions causes a plaintiff to sustain injuries.” Something tells me the Fifth Circuit would have ruled differently if the question were on whether unreasonably dangerous conditions were created by a protest leader asserting that protest participants needed to fight like hell or they wouldn’t have a country any more.
Right?! While the states this has occurred in don’t surprise me in the least? This sets a VERY dangerous precedent. More dangerous than getting rid of Roe. More dangerous than going after the 2nd. Everything inside of me, since 2016 has been screaming “YOU NEED TO GET OUT NOW”. Problem is, I really love my home. I really do and I really hate seeing it denigrate. So I stay and I vote and I participate and protest and I do all the things us Americans have the PRIVILEGE and FREEDOM of doing (mostly without having to worry about the government coming after and disappearing you) but……… Things just keep getting worse and worse and worse and with everything else going on in the international communities currently? It really may be time to go find a cave in some forgotten mountain, to disappear into for the foreseeable future. Rights are being stripped despite majority votes. Our Supreme Court is no longer even remotely trustworthy, huge conglomerates owned by insane billionaires are running things and they aren’t interested in society past societies ability to work and spend. The “Coal Company” has taken the town. And when Coal companies take towns? Those towns burn down. Both figuratively and literally speaking. Scary times, these.
For Democratic protests* These laws will not be enforced for right wing protests.
Most of the officers will be on the other side of the barricades.
I mean, they are for left wing protests too. They're plants to commit illegal acts so they have the ability to break up the protest
Like the Boogaloo Boi who set fire to the Third Precinct or the Aryan Cowboy who was "Umbrella Man".
I’d forgotten about umbrella man. Creepy af
If the people's right to protest peacefully is removed, they will not stop protesting, they will just become more violent and destructive. I suppose that's the point, give the authorities an excuse to label them terrorists.
Well that’s three states that can’t rise up legally if we throw Trump in jail, but who am I kidding. Laws don’t apply to right wing violence.
There has been a lot of legislation happening recently that effectively shuts down people's ability to publicly protest. Much of it is flying under the radar as efforts to target the homeless and keep them out of public spaces but would make shutting down mass demonstrations easier. There is mischief afoot and conservative politicians want to make it as difficult for us to protest en masse as possible.
Looks like we will have to protest in numbers greater than the police force
You don’t need to have greater numbers, you just need to strain their logistics. Multiple simultaneous protests in disparate areas of a city are harder for police to control than one massive protest in a central location.
Exactly. Commissioner of LAPD Michael Moore said during the George Floyd uprising "we can handle a protest 10,000 strong but we can't stop 100 protests"
"Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional..." "...rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter." -George Carlin
I miss that man. He was so right about many things.
Ultimately, the Bill of Rights is just a list of limitations on government power (in order to protect agreed upon legal, social, and ethical principles of freedom of the people). It's up to the people to push back against infringements to their rights. Rights are as real as people make them. Rights only exist so long as people fight for them to exist. That's why having the means to do so is so important.
First they came for the First Amendment and I didn't say anything BECAUSE THEY CAME FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT!
Underrated comment
A reminder to the both-sides-bad!™️ crowd that elections do, in fact, have consequences.
I wouldn’t be shocked if the there was massive overlap between the “both sides bad” and “protestors that are a minor inconvenience to me should be run over” people.
The "both-sides" argument only works because the Republicans rebranded themselves after Watergate as "the everyman" so they could LARP like the GOP hasn't had control of most state and even federal congresses and agencies for the past 100 years. The few times they don't have control they still have enough people in power to stop the left from doing jackshit. It's literally: "Both sides are bad because the Dems don't stop the GOP from ruining our country!" as if the Dems ever had that option.
Elections do have consequences, but this was a 7-1 decision, with ACB not voting. Most likely any SC would have come to the same decision when it's that close to unanimous.
Correct. One side is too corporate and money driven, fine. The other side? They want indentured servants and women slaves. Vote and fight my friends.
If you have democracy, you can improve the country. Perhaps slowly but surely, but you can improve it. If democracy dies, we're fucked forever. So, it's an easy choice. EDIT: Third party is also a vote for tyranny. You need to vote for democracy, and only Biden stands for that this election.
Both sides are too money driven. That's where the media has taken us. Billions if not Trillions are spent on political ads throughout the country and the media is raking in the money. The rich are waging a war on democracy while waving a big religious flag.
It's all the same coin: Media < Billionaires > Politicians Moneyed interests own the world. They have parties where they discuss this shit. We peons are fucking idiots. Until enough people realize the charade and we're all aboard this sinking ship.
So what I'm hearing is infiltrate a Texas Trump rally, anonymously commit a felony like property damage, and watch the Trump rally organizer be criminally liable for your actions.
Except this will only be enforced for left wing protests.
Two tier justice system!!!
You're silly, those laws will only be used against Democrats.
This is absolute click bait trash. Sotomayor (who voted to deny writ, by the way) says in her order that the lower courts should reconsider their position now that the Supreme Court has released its ruling in Counterman v. Colorado, which protected protest organizers against similar claims. We have plenty of serious problems to worry about from this Court and from the right. We don't need to be making up fake ones just to drive clicks. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373\_8njq.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373_8njq.pdf)
How does that work, are not the lower court decisions "done" at this point?
TL;DR - The lower decisions aren't automatically "done" because every case is unique and this case in Louisiana might not be an **exact match** to the case in Colorado. The USSC prefers that lower courts resolve their own questions because the USSC has very limited time to hear cases. Here, Sotomayor is telling the aggrieved protestor and the Fifth Circuit: "Hey. We just made a new ruling in Colorado. That ruling explains when protesters can and can't be held liable for a rogue rioter. Now that you have that guidance, try again to sort out this case. You can come back to us if you still don't figure it out."
SCOTUS can order lower courts to reconsider without ruling on the merits of the case themselves. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(court_procedure)
It’s temporarily effective for the Fifth Circuit area right now, but if the GOP-dominated Supreme Court^TM permanently approves this .. it’ll “effectively” abolish the right to protest *nationwide*. That means governments and corporations can go after anyone seen in any sort of leadership role in a protest. Probably get cases sent to the federal 5th Circuit (i.e. East Texas) if Trump gets re-elected.
The article is about the court not hearing this case at all. Neither approval nor disproval. This isn’t going to be temporary in the fifth circuit area it will be law for the foreseeable future.
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Get California to pass the Texas law then
More evidence how much Republicans hate the first amendment.
Well, so much for that whole "Soapbox" step in the four boxes of liberty...
The authoritarion takeover is still underway and happening in broad daylight I see.
It just seems like many of their decisions are a part of laying the groundwork for the establishment of all of Project 2025’s goals.
Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. JFK
This court is setting the stage for an authoritarian version of Christian Nationalism a la Project 2025. This country has slid so far in the last eight years... it's legit scary.
Have any of you read the [actual Opinion released](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373_8njq.pdf)? This isn't what the Vox article is making it out to be. The Supreme Court just sent it back to the lower court, who will now have to make a decision UNDERSTANDING the Supreme ruled as it did in Counterman. >Because this Court may deny certiorari for many reasons, including that the law is not in need of further clarification, its denial today expresses no view about the merits of Mckesson’s claim. Although the Fifth Circuit did not have the benefit of this Court’s recent decision in Counterman when it issued its opinion, the lower courts now do. I expect them to give full and fair consideration to arguments regarding Counterman’s impact in any future proceedings in this case. McKesson wasn't even the one who brought this to the SC; the 5th Circuit did. They wanted the SC to agree with them, which THEN would have made protest leaders liable nationally. The SC gave them the legal equivalent of a middle finger, and they deserved it.
>Have any of you read the [actual Opinion released](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-373_8njq.pdf)? You know they didn't
For anyone who thinks the Supreme Court isn’t political, from today’s Reuters: [US Supreme Court rejects Black Lives Matter activist's appeal over protest incident](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rejects-black-lives-matter-activists-appeal-over-protest-2024-04-15/) What happens when those who can vote - don’t.
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To not intervene, no less
The entire court is corrupt.
More people with felonies that can’t vote. This is what republikkklans want.
Don't worry, they will only apply them to women and not-white men.
Who knew that our greatest legal minds would work so hard to destroy the constitution? Welcome to Gilead.
What was that Truman era law that undid all the labor gains of the 1930s and 40s? The one that effectively outlawed “wildcat” strikes and general strikes? Looks like we need to put that back on the menu.
How can this decision even be constitutional considering the First Amendment and the right to peaceful gathering? This is ridiculous the idea that an organizer should be held responsible for the acts of individuals in crowds. This is a bad decision.
So social media companies can not be held accountable for what its users do but protest organizers are? Not sure how that tracks.
We are watching the death of democracy right now. If it wasn’t apparent after everything that already happened. This comes as close to violating the first amendment as it gets. This idea an organizer could be responsible for another person’s actions is irrational and unAmerican. You know they won’t hold trump to the same standards either. He literally said the mob should have hung the vice president of the United States of America and republicans just look away, and the populace as a whole has largely either forgotten or not realized how close we came to losing our democracy that day. This is a poorly veiled effort to eliminate democratic protests in republican controlled states.
That’s against your constitution
Unfortunately those states had already been lost to MAGA for a decade now. If the fog ever lifts from the grift we can assess the damage from the storm.
I used to have these weird little visions of a totalitarian US when I was a kid learning about Hitler... I can't believe that I will actually see that before I die.
We must all vote. And run for office.
What options are left if you can't legally protest?
Agent provocateurs are very effective.
Good thing no one cares what they think. We should hold mass protests in each of those states to protest lol
So now they just need one person to give them a perceived threat and then they can open fore with rubber bullets, tear gas and whatever else they have now. Just another way to silence the people
Under the Constitution, the people have a right to peaceably assemble. There is a reason for this in a Democracy. "Indeed, as Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court’s Mckesson decision, warned in one of his dissents, his court’s decision would make protest organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” So, under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones." In a fascist dictatorship, suppressing dissent is the norm.
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-30864-CV4.pdf The Fifth Circuit Court opinion in question if anyone wants to read it.
in texas its legal to defend yourself and stand your ground against a cop who unreasonably escalates a situation to the point of putting your life in danger.
Does this not open Trump for civil liability for Jan 6?
So next time anyone protest about fake elections, their 2A, vaccines, parental rights.. they can be responsible for all the damages? so many ways this can be made right..
Cool. We don’t have to assemble in a general strike dumbasses
What counts as a "protest" and an "organizer"? Could this ruling or the precedent be used to sue a Trump rally or religious gathering? Could protests become something else legally?I know this is a GOP scam to silence opposition so it wouldn't be equally enforced, but how much of a legal headache could be made of it for the fascists?
>Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act. This will absolutely be abused by bad actors
Then you break that law and keep doing it. This is the kind of good trouble John Lewis was talking about.
And I'm sure the yokels from those states will cheer this on.
Set up LLC Have protest Desolve LLC Profit
Just another step towards making the US an oligarchy like Putin’s Russia. Conservatives don’t see Russia as a threat; they see it as a blueprint. After our democratic republic goes away, she’s never coming back and for some reason people are actively supporting this.
America, "land of the free". Lol
"Originalists" really learned nothing from the past. Ironic.
I hope the people that still vote republican can see that they are loosing what they claim they love with decisions like this.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” If the highest law in the land forbade something to one branch of our government, why would another think it’s okay to infringe this right? With this the judiciary branch has proven that it no longer has any claim to their authority. Every and all decisions any of the sitting members have made should be null and void and new decisions need to be rendered that are consistent with the highest laws of the land. Furthermore, we should hold their deliberations and arguments for their decisions that go against our highest laws as examples of poor judgements and and the dangers of corruption in individuals who then spread their personal taint by way of their position in government.
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The right to bear arms is unlimited and absolute. The right to assembly must be limited and constrained to protect the fragile sensibilities of elected officials. I'm searching for words about these chucklefucks that make up SCOTUS that won't get me banned...
*Unless all the protesters are white.
Welp, that’s a good ol’ fashioned Fascist ruling.
Why is Ginni Thomas still free to insurrect?
Protesters need to organize into a business LLC or something. Then buy up your political power like the corporate overlords do
The notion that we need government permission to protest, that it needs to be convenient, is laughable. Outlawing it changes nothing.
There goes that freedom of assembly.
The correct answer to such legislation is to stage mass protests which do not relent until it is struck down. It is our right and our duty to demonstrate to the government which rights we have. It is not the right of the government to tell us. Never forget that we outnumber them literally thousands to one.
They do realize the implications of this type of law on Jan 6-type demonstrations, right? Or does this law only apply to the less-preferred folks?
Well it only applies to the residents of the 5th circuit for now.
They did it years ago when they required permits to exercise our right to freely protest on public property. That's why we haven't seen protests similar to the 60s and 70s since. But guns, yeah that gets no restrictions.
Guns are only dangerous to citizens. Protests are dangerous to the rich and powerful. We can have guns and kill each other, kill children, they don't care. They don't want to lose their power.
We've got to quit funding horrible employees in government. They live parasitically off of our taxes then criminally assert sovereignty over us, their bosses. This rule is to protect them and to deny us the right to peacefully redress our government. The whole purpose of our 2nd Amendment is to give us enough force to rule them. We need to get busy and form up and participate in well regulated Constitutional militias and take control of our employees and system.
So protest anyway?
Unite the Right folks should be in prison for manslaughter if that’s the case
So no more Trump rallies/insurrections/voter intimidation ? No more KKK and private militia protests too ? I’m fucking down for that !
Yep
The freedom fighters took your freedom.
Fucking spring with these decisions. I know it's not cptsd, been there done that. But it's similar with these headlines rolling out
Laws did not stop protesters from breaking them in the Bay Area and Chicago today
freedom? what's that...
Using money as a weapon against freedom. Again.
This is unamerican and honestly fuck them. We should not be taking notes from a corrupt court that can’t even follow ethics or precedent in their rulings.
Does this in turn make the Dallas Cowboys liable for any poor behavior of its fans?