When some protests in Baltimore started to turn destructive, the Mayor had some interesting things to say. She said that she wanted to protect the protesters freedom of speech but also wanted to give them "A space to destroy." Why would she say that. Could she equating freedom of speech with a right to destroy?
Lately we have been confusing speech with actions. Any actions that could be equated as a political statement is thought to be speech and is thus protected. That is not the case. Some people will use the term freedom of expression but no such freedom is found in the Bill of Rights. It is freedom of speech so that means speech. That covers most any type of speech in verbal written or recorded form. The only real exception to this is where you're speech leads to someone else losing their rights. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is the classic example. If you do you could panic people causing a stampede that could land someone in the hospital. Actions are not speech and thus can be regulated for the public good. The supreme court has gotten this wrong a lot in the last century and this could be why so many people are confused by the issue. I don't think it should be illegal to burn the flag, but it should be constitutional to do ban flag burning. That is an action not a form of speech and open flames in public area's are dangerous and local municipalities have the right to restrict that activity especially in public where the safety of the general population is involved.
Even if you believe in flag burning as a constitutional right most people would noy believe in giving protesters the space to destroy other people's thing's. Even with the growing belief that actions are protected speech it is still a major jump to say the right to destroy is a constitutional guarantee.
There is one other possibly I can think of, off the top of my head. She also said that they were also trying to deescalate the situation. I think what she meant is that if they moved into much with the police that would provoke the protestors into fighting with the cops and someone on onside or another would get hurt. I think this is the main reason they were giving people the area to destroy. This is wrong on two counts.
First this alows one group to infringe on the rights of another. How would you like to have your car in a destroy zone. I know I would not appreciate it. Innocent people are being hurt by the way they are choosing to deescalate the situation.
My other problem with it is that it does not deescalate the situation. It actually escalates the situation. I told my wife this morning that these protests would get more and more violent because of the mayors actions. judging by what hasd happened so far this evening I was right. So why was this so easy to call? Simple if I have a rule in my house that noone gets desert untill they clear their dinner dishes but after a few weeks of enforcing the rule I stop. I just let my kids get dessert before they clear there dinner dishes, do you think they will continue to clear their dinner dishes? No! I am rewarding their behavor,not obeying the rules with a reward of desert. This is called positive reenforcment. The Mayor is doing the samething on a greater scale. She is rewarding a beghavior, vandalism with these destruction area's. Instead of punishing bad behavior we are rewarding it. The best way to get a behavior is by rewarding it. So obviously we would get more of that behavior. So it only made sense that the mayors actions would increase not decrease illeagal activity.
Oh yes. Once people who gather together strat destroying property or hurting people, and alot of people have been hurt tonight, it no longer is a porest it is now a riot. These people now are rioters not protesters. You never saw Martin Luther King destroying a car or beating up a cameraman. That never happened. We sully the name of every legitimate protestor like the great Dr. King when we refer to rioters as protestors.
What happeend to Freddie Gray is disturbing and should be investigated properly, but rioting and allowing rioters destroy areas is not the way to do it.