Republicans are systematically shredding the freedoms enshrined within the Structure’s First Modification as a result of permitting the folks to have a voice is a menace to the GOP’s fascist aspirations.
Like their vile demigod Trump, Republicans have traditionally despised the U.S. Structure – save the twond Modification and one non secular clause within the First Modification. Put up Trump, Republicans have develop into relentless of their assault on the folks’s freedoms contained within the First Modification on the identical fee they’re erasing their proper to vote.
Let’s face it, if Republican racists and non secular fanatics adhered to the nation’s founding doc, the assorted state legislatures and U.S. Congress might do the form of enterprise that serves the inhabitants and relieve the nation’s judicial system of litigation to protect the inherent rights of the folks contained within the Structure.
Nonetheless, Republicans can not stand the U.S. Structure generally, and the 14th and 1st Modification particularly, as a result of it supplies for equal therapy beneath the legislation and offers the folks a voice. Clearly the GOP’s assaults on ladies, the LGBTQ group, folks of coloration, and socially acutely aware People would by no means occur if Republicans had a modicum of respect for, and fealty to, the U.S. Structure they swear an oath to assist, defend and protect.
Since final summer time when historical numbers of People took to the streets to train their First Modification proper to air their grievances relating to police violence towards folks of coloration, Republicans conferred and determined to place an finish to the suitable to protest – exactly like Trump needed.
The folks’s proper to assemble to air their displeasure at police killing their fellow People as a result of they weren’t white is being criminalized in a number of Republican managed states. And to make issues even worse, Republicans are giving their disciples authorized authority to kill and maim protestors beneath “civil immunity” protections.
It was reported two days in the past that, identical to the fascist voter suppression efforts rampant in GOP managed states, Republicans in 34 states have introduced 81 bills making peaceable protests a prison act worthy of very substantial jail sentences if the protestors aren’t victims of legalized violence by vehicle.
In case any American had a doubt who these fascist anti-protest legal guidelines are supposed to serve, recall that Florida’s fascist governor proudly introduced that his state’s assault on peaceful protests was to display the nation’s “strongest pro-law-enforcement laws” and bolster his bona fides as a critically legit fascist. The fascist Florida legislation classifies a public gathering of three or extra folks “a riot;” defendants are denied bail till they seem in courtroom.
Now one other Republican state is enacting anti-protest legal guidelines designed particularly to guard the Republicans’ treasured fossil gasoline business and put Native People of their place as lower than second class residents with ladies, folks of coloration, and members of the LGBTQ group.
Montana Republicans handed an aggressive, “anti-pipeline protest law” the place protestors face tens-of-thousands of {dollars} in fines and as much as 30 years in jail. Montana’s Republican governor is anticipated to signal the invoice into legislation to formally criminalize demonstrations at fossil gasoline infrastructure websites which are additionally sometimes close to Native American reservations.
People face fines as much as $150,000 and 30 years in jail, and any group thought-about to be “co-conspirators of protest exercise” will resist $1.5 million in fines
It shouldn’t be a revelation to any acutely aware American that the power behind the Republican assaults on the First Modification, and democracy for that matter, is the American Legislative Trade Council (ALEC).
The Montana invoice, for instance, is the “newest of over two dozen items of laws modeled on the work of the conservative American Legislative Trade Council“ particularly written to stamp out protests though they’re protected beneath the First Modification of the USA Structure.
The fascist Republicans are on a tear to wipe out the folks’s voices with 361 voter disenfranchisement bills in 47 states and 81 (and counting) anti-protest measures. None of those fascist measures are constitutional and but it’s uncertain the conservatives on the Supreme Court docket will raise a finger to revive the First Modification rights of the folks or defend their proper to vote.
America’s democracy was all the time fragile, however with a minority social gathering aspiring to full-blown fascist rule and a Trump-packed judiciary anxious to ignore the doc they swore to uphold, it seems that America’s little experiment in democracy will come to an inauspicious finish.
Audio engineer and teacher for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of girls, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of faith and notably, freedom of NO faith.
Born within the South, raised within the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
