Okay so since protests are an expression of opinion, and you got that pesky first amendment, all protests are legal, so this tweet is a nothing burger.
We really need to tax the mega rich. I compiled this list of numbers after the President speech last night, it's kinda wild:
$ 99,000 - National Median Income is less than $100 thousand.
$ 1,000,000 - 1 Million Dollars.
$ 485,000,000 - Cut Funds to International Relations and whatever.
$ 1,000,000,000 - 1 Billion Dollars. There are over 400 Billionaires in America.
$ 22,000,000,000 - Cut Funds to American Social Serivces through HHS (Human & Health Services).
$ 244,000,000,000 - Elon Musks Net Worth.
$ 1,620,000,000,000 - 1 Trillion Dollars - Meta (Facebooks) Corporate Net Worth.
$19,900,000,000,000 - The U.S. Deficit in Jan 2017 (Obama to Trump)
$27,800,000,000,000 - The U.S. Deficit in Jan 2021 (Trump to Biden)
$36,000,000,000,000 - The U.S. Deficit in Jan 2025 (Biden to Trump)
Every time I scroll past this image, that’s the line that gets me. Bold threatening declaration by fascist dictator, then ends like a work email reminding you not to leave food in the cafeteria fridge over the weekend.
I used to be the pride of my family for having finished college. Now it's demonized by them.
I feel for the students of today. College was an important time for me. I experienced a lot of new ideas, my mind was opened. I didn't get to do much in grad school, but my first four years of college changed me and I wouldn't be the same without those experiences. The way the situation is escalating we may see colleges completely locked down or even abolished.
"You know the best strategy to counter this is to do nothing, it will burn itself out after awhile. If a few people die or get imprisoned well that's okay as long as I don't have to do anything difficult or will affect my portfolio and control. "
obviously I made this quote up but it is how I feel about the people in power that say they are against this administration but really are doing jack shit to support or engage the population. Sure there are some that are doing somethings and I appreciate that, but fuck man do most of the "opposition" party really not have a spine? Like what the fuck, there are millions of citizens that are genuinely scared for their life and freedom and all we are getting is crickets...
Then they came from the students, and I watched my parents still beg for more fascism because they thought they were going to be billionaires any day now
Since many answers aren't actually answering the question...
Most places require a permit to assemble en masse. There are "free speech zones" where you can create large gatherings without any kind of advance notice or permit or whatever. Most universities have a free speech zone towards the middle of their campuses. Cities will also often have at least one but somewhere that doesn't inconvenience commerce, like a park or near city hall.
Most mass assembly requires a permit and sometimes a fee, even in public places. Following this prevents arrest by "disturbing the peace" or other such laws, usually.
How this squares with the first amendment is interpretation. Individual freedom of speech is protected except very specific public order and safety things, e.g. calling for violence. Coordinated, mass freedom of speech is perceived as a fast path to rioting.
I'm not saying this is right, but this is my understanding of how things work. I'm not a lawyer or an expert in these matters. This is just what I learned from activist friends in my university time ages ago.
As for expulsion, public universities are run by states. To my understand, Trump has no legal mechanism to do this. He's just talking out of his ass or expects to bully public institutions into expelling students by threatening to withhold department of education funding... but he's planning to kill that anyway, so 🤷♂️
I spent most of my 20s doing grassroots campaigning, with a large part of it being protest planning and organization. You generally do not need a permit to conduct protests on public property, even large ones, in the USA.
The exceptions are very specific; i.e. blocking roads may require a permit.
An illegal protest, according to conservatives, is any protest they disagree with. Waving picket signs or blocking traffic is disruptive, destructive, and illegal. Storming the capitol is, on the other hand, a perfectly acceptable peaceful protest.
He doesn’t give a shit about the speech. It’s the schools and universities he wants to harm. Even if it’s just a matter of disrupting them through legal overwhelm.
Remember, he’s only got the intelligence of a kumquat. He doesn’t even understand that he’s too stupid to understand anything. He vomits whatever he thinks give his followers happy endings.
Apparantly, (in the US) any protest that needs to occupy the road requires a permit. Yea imagine how stupid it is, you want to protest the government and you need to apply for permission?!? I was shocked when my teacher told me about this. Seems like a huge First Amendment violation to me, but society just goes along with it. 😓
So unless your protest is strictly on the sidewalk, you need a permit. So fucking dumb.
You don’t need a permit to march in the streets or on sidewalks, as long as marchers don’t obstruct car or pedestrian traffic. And that makes a lot of sense because if you block a road perhaps emergency services need to know ahead of time that they can't take that route. Or others concerns may be relevant. For the very same reasons this is similar in countries around the world.
Source: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights
There was a poll a few days before the famous march on Washington that culminated in King's "I have a dream speech" and two thirds of Americans thought the march was unamerican.
America has always hated uppity protesters demanding rights.
They won't. They couldn't even get upset over kids being massacred every week in their schools. They are a broken people. Have been for decades. Their military.and economy didn't fail. Their moral fiber did. They substituted thoughts and prayers and other virtue signalling for community organisation and direct action.
If you think I am wrong then don't reply. Go outside and prove it. Nobody gives a shit what people write in social media. It means nothing.
The problem is it cuts both ways. The Democrats saying they want hate speech to not be protected and Nazi propaganda to be censored is just the flipside of the same coin.
You are not wrong. The Supreme Court finding presidential immunity and then allowing an insurrectionist to run in contravention of the 14th amendment seems to have finally put the old document to rest.
I mean just to be fair isn't it illegal to have a huge protest without informing the authorities first? Also violent protests would be illegal too, right?
These assumptions are based on similar laws from other countries. But I don't really believe Trump is talking about those protests or just planning to forbid them from getting permission to happen.
some colleges in the west are already suffering from low enrollment as it is to the point they had to slash faculty and classes depending on the field, and some schools are even worst off(this is mostly for state univ that arnt very prestigious), more than likely he will do this to most liberal colleges, and it will quickly depopulate the already dwindling student body in some schools. also the one-to-punch of anti-intellectual and the funding for research is also in jeopardy. more expensive schools with more prestige much be able to weather this, since they are less likely to be affected by these cuts that the schools are going through currently at lower levels.
I'm not sure if you've realized, but that means nothing. It has become abundantly clear that the law (and lawsuits) are used by the ruling class and not against them. When used against them, it doesn't matter. They either ignore the fines, pay the pennies, tie it up in court, or in some other way get off scot free.
I'm all for protesting, but make no mistake, people will be made an example of, and it won't be the oppressors.
I remember when the Democrats brought down the hammer hard on anti-genocide protestors in universities. Trump is doing the same, but expanding it to all protests.
Trump is worse I never said otherwise. My point isn’t that Republicans aren’t worse, but that the Democrats failed to live up to expectations of their constituents and helped lead us down this path.
Killing protesters is too visible and often sparks outrage. Quietly deporting them or using behind-the-scenes methods to remove them is more discreet and allows the agenda to progress with less resistance.
Let's not keep making the mistake of assuming Trump's tweets have force of law. He's just talking out of his ass again, just like he's not actually invading greenland and canada. Notice how he's talking about at least 4 different actions here, I'm pretty sure none of which he can actually do. 5 if you count thanking us for our attention to this matter (?). If Trump tries to do anything in this regard no judge* will uphold it.
Let's not keep making the mistake of assuming the rule of law matters at this point. If he does something and nobody stops it, its legality or lack there of is moot. If he says to do something and people do it and nobody stops him (or judge's rulings about it are ignored), then it doesn't matter that it was illegal.
I know you're just trying to get people to calm down, but at this point, people are right to be scared and right to think these things could actually come to pass considering it has happened before. Maybe it won't get that far... But plenty has already happened that should never have happened, and the US currently has a president who is illegally, specifically unconstitutionally, holding office and was allowed to be sworn in anyway, so it's probably not a good idea to assume this won't happen just because it's also unconstitutional.
People in power do what he says. His word is de facto law, even if it’s illegal. It literally does not matter. You are in denial if you think he’s not going to get away with this.
That word doesn't mean anything to him, except as a tool to prosecute people he doesn't like. Obviously laws and illegality don't mean shit when it's him breaking the law.
Pretty sure there is enough evidence for treason at this point, but Congress won't act on it.
While I did vote blue conservative (for the last time), they were not worthy of that vote because they did not represent me. That's how representative democracy works. What you advocate for is not representative democracy, it is a hostage situation and should be treated like the crisis that that entails.
Why are you okay with people being underrepresented at the voting booth? Are you actively working to replace First Past the Post voting in your state? People should have the freedom to vote for the candidates they believe are best, while still ensuring their votes count against those they don’t want in office.
It's not as though democrats are just now learning of the mathematical flaws of FPTP. Every election I've seen the same bullshit excuses to take people's inalienable right to vote how they want. Democrats in blue states made a choice to leave a huge portion of the population unrepresented, all for safe states and easy elections.
We don’t need to wait for a miracle from Congress, we can pass election reform one state at a time. Should we have more elections, we must remove the democratic monopoly on this fight against the republicans. Don't worry, blue conservative, you will be free to vote for your preference under a more representative electoral system. Because who would want to deny someone the right to vote for the person they feel is best? You apparently.
Alaska has already abolished FPTP voting. After Ranked Choice Voting kept Sarah Palin out of office, Alaskan Republicans tried to pass a referendum to revert to FPTP, but the people voted to keep Ranked Choice. Why would you want to use the same voting system that Republicans favor? Do you support democracy, or do you get off on forcing people unrepresented in government to vote for your preference?
I swallowed my misgivings and voted Democrat, just like I've done at each election since I turned 18, but handwaving away valid criticisms is not how you get people to side with you. Pressure needs to be put on the democrats to be better, too.
I'm 100% for valid criticisms—I don't even consider myself a Democrat and I have no compunctions about criticizing them when I think they are wrong. But I'm pretty sure that meme is directed at those who withheld their vote.
But I spent a lot of time ringing any alarm bell I could find that all of Joe and Kamal's moves to the right was gonna cost us the election, and that the victory fund would lose the House and Senate.
I was right on all counts, but the people I was trying to explain it won't admit that reality proved them wrong.
There's no criticism for what the party did wrong, only anger at anyone with higher standards than the letter by the name.
Neoliberals want nothing as much as they want blindly loyal Dem voters, it's the only way most people ever hold their noses and vote for one. But rather than have a candidate dem voters want, they'd rather risk trump.
When they shut on voters like in that meme, they're telling us they have zero problem watching the country burn. They'd rather have trump than a Dem who agrees with Dem voters.
Pressure needs to be put on the democrats to be better, too.
They're already 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x better than Republicans. So someone would have to be pretty goddamn stupid not to vote for them when the options are them or Republicans.
The majority of the fault isn't on Democrats. It's on goddamn stupid braindead asshole American voters for being goddamn stupid braindead assholes.
If you look carefully, you'll find statements about how "neither option affects [this particular thing] but we have the best chance of fixing it after the election if we still have a country".
It was never handwaved. It was the least-worse option with some kind of hope given that issue and a thousand others. How many times this has fucking been fucking explained and not fucking understood.
I'm not American so nobody got my vote, but seems to me like the issue is with the swathes of people choosing facism rather than progressives who chose not to vote.
Choosing how to act in a world like ours is tricky, anyone following a sense of right and wrong (even if I disagree with their judgement) instead of fear, hate, greed or whatever gets a gold star in my book.
Inaction is still a choice, though. I totally understand the sentiment behind that choice and even agree that we shouldn't be forced to choose genocide, but the alternative that we got is a man who not only wants the same genocide, but wants to accelerate it, put American boots on the ground to assist in it, and then turn the bloodied ground into resorts while also wanting to worsen life across the globe. So, by refusing to act, they didn't oppose that man getting into power. They cared so much about genocide that, ironically, they enabled making that genocide worse by not acting against that possibility.
The biggest issue, though, is with the people who couldn't be bothered enough to vote. Some, what, 40% of Americans never vote? Of course, there's plenty there who can't due to things like gerrymandering, but there's a huge swathe of white suburbanites who simply prefer the status quo to actually improving things.
I feel a lot of people do a lot to justify stupid behaviour. "Saving is too hard" or "exercise is too hard". There's legit reasons to not be able to save, or exercise or being able to vote 🤨.
However there's a lot of bullshit that people were spouting. It's either a coordinated campaign or just dumb shit. What annoys me is everyone piling on Joe and then they did what people wanted and swapped to Kamala and they're still upset that the Dems "don't listen". Whatever, they're all full of it.
I fucking hate the Democrats but you have to be completely psycho to justify not-voting for them.
To be clear, I'm Canadian and I'm directly impacted by this now. So fuck all of those people.
This exactly. Higher education hurts them in the long run so it was never going to get a pass. It’ll be gutted so that private schools can take over. This is just a way to put the blame on the universities and students who don’t bend to their will.
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
1st ammendment to the constitution since conservatives love to claim they support it
Yeah but they're gonna rewrite the constitution, it's gonna be the best constitution the founding fathers will be jealous they didn't come up with this thing it's gonna be airtight and on the blockchain
Congress isn't making a law. Instead, the President is committing treason while his party pretends not to notice and the other party flops around like a dead fish.
The amount of times I've heard salty right wing grifters complain about Orwellian censorship on literally everything. But I guess it's just fine if cult leader Trump does it, because he stands for what's right and sticks it to those progressive plebs, right?
He didn't win by being consistent. Hypocrisy is WHY people voted for him. They thought he was the only one who would "do the hard things" by being cruel to the people who are hurting everyone. That's the narrative at least, and while you can literally write libraries on the flaws, inconsistencies and logical discrepancies in Trump and the Republican narratives, the fact remains that most people are vulnerable to storylines.
Not moral flaws. Not character. Not record or experience. The only thing people largely, as a group, care about is JUST how someone makes them feel in that moment. And a lot of poorly educated, mentally unwell people saw and heard Trump lying to the people they believe were the cause of all our woes, and that's why they voted for him.
If we ever want another democracy that works, we have to understand that our population is genetically and physically identical to the beings who were clubbing each other's heads in during ten thousand years of ice age glaciers and primitive hardship. We survived those times by forming tight-knight groups and telling ourselves stories for how to survive. We're doing the same things right now, but someone else is guiding those stories. Either we stop the storytellers or we make better stories that people will want to repeat. Those are our only options.
Either we stop the storytellers or we make better stories that people will want to repeat.
We do have better stories: the stories or class conflict and workers solidarity. It's just that the people in power would rather fascists win than let those stories reach the people that need to hear them.
It's just them wanting to a) be right (when it's usually not the case) and 2) the other viewpoint to be silent immediately. They fuckin love censorship because first amendment only applies to them and theirs.
I swear I saw lots of "Genocide Joe" people around before the election so there must be some overlap of at least bots.. now where are these ppl when it comes to Trump's beach resort proposal of ethnic cleansing?
"Such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives... What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt."
We have a ton of money, a ton of military installations, and 1 in 8 Americans IS a Californian. Washington and Oregon join us, and we'd be in even better shape. Canada can get in on the action too.
A felon rapist traitor and his traitor party is making our Constitution irrelevant. Time to start looking out for ourselves.
WA state here - it's ridiculous that I have to subsidize chuds in Mississippi and Louisiana when they won't even give their citizens human rights. they're all about fiscal responsibility until it comes to paying their own fucking bills.
edit: love the chudvotes, do we have some cranky MS and LA types? pay your fucking bills jerkfaces. fuck, half your budgets come from federal funds we pour more into.
If we are going to do a tax protest we will need some kind of guarantees from the state government. Otherwise going to war with the IRS will not work. The IRS always wins.
I'm not sure that's feasible, since the states don't just sign a check to the Feds once a year, it's paid via payroll taxes. To my knowledge, there is no kind of mechanism for entire states to collectively refuse payment.
That costs money in state taxes, and the GOP is working on reducing the state and local tax deductions in the federal tax code. Making states who are trying to create good living conditions for their citizens prohibitively expensive to live in. It's horse shit.
Does "NO MASKS" mean that choosing to wear a mask to protect your health is now forbidden at colleges or is there another meaning that I don't understand? It is so random and has nothing to do with the rest of the post except for being "woke".
For loads of clinically vulnerable people, the right to protest is dependent on the right to mask. You can only risk going to a crowded protest if you’re allowed to use protective measures to prevent infections.
this is his plan all alone, one of inner circle wrote the book on geopolitics, and even in the 80 they deemed trump to a potential useful president one day.
Now apply that law retroactively to catch all women's March supporters cuz fuck women right? And then all the other civil rights matches before women's. They're gonna catch me for protesting migrants Rights during prop 187?? Back in 1998? Those were the days...just the government trying to fuck up the world slowly with room for lube. Trump is power tool going full send after everyone's rights. WTF get the guy out already!!!!
How many universities will abandon free speech rights for 10% of their budget? Hard to say, many abandoned them for less when students were protesting genocide.
It's the USA, the only things that matters is money. Universities are already run like business so dont expect anything else than financial decisions. It will just make usa even more under-educated if that's even possible. Higher education wont mean anything exceot that your parents are rich.
How many universities will abandon free speech rights for 10% of their budget?
All of them. Of course they'll frame it like "to enable our storied institution to continue performing our vital work, we are temporarily putting a moratorium on non-pre-approved meetings. Thank you for your understanding."
Also, read up on what they are ultimately going for: Eliminating the First Amendment
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.
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.
Trump supporters: "that's fine, the president isn't congress"
Errr, they can be illegal if they break other laws, like obstructing traffic, damaging property, or trespass on private property. It's manageable with small groups, but it's hard to coordinate an angry, large group to not do that. That's when they call in police and that's when they make arrests.
Of course he does. His whole ascent to Presidency has had plenty on display. This isn't new. It's because people see him behave this way that he got this far. That's the problem.
I'm honestly worried about a mask ban EO, without any exceptions for medical or other purposes, partially because I hate the destructive use of AI and facial recognition tech, partially because I hate ableism, partially because I love public health, among other reasons. I think protecting your identity is not just a right but a moral imperative when taking certain positive and productive actions, so you have the chance to continue the work. In addition I think protecting oneself and others from airborne diseases is a must if one intends to abide by a policy of harm reduction, pollution is another concern as well.
Don't worry! Once the people who Defend the Constitution after SCORES OF 6 YEAR OLDS GET MOWED DOWN BY A GUNMAN hear about this they'll be PISSED and Take Action!
Make sure to keep blaming "rednecks" and "hillbillies", and not the billionaire backers of MAGA who own various media outlets and some of the largest companies in the world.
In no way am I defending this behavior but wouldn't this only apply to public universities and colleges? The many that are technically private property can entirely ignore this correct?
If only y'all had some sort of constitution with some sort of amendment that ment you had free speech and another that said you had weapons with which to defend said constitution.
Re the 1st amendment, sure. But the 2nd amendment link between weapon ownership and defense of freedom has been comprehensively nullified by the United States Supreme Court (via gross judicial overreach in their 2008 decision on DC v. Heller).
science meme? ok, i'll bite. fuck this indeed, imagine being Jewish in the past year, and being harassed and bullied from the "from the river to the sea" folks on campus, made to feel unsafe and targeted, not because you're Israeli, but simply because you're Jewish, and when you complain, being met with feckless and indignant school administration saying "free speech bro". broken clock right twice a day, and all that. time to make American Jihadis, and the nihilist leftists that support them, think twice, about what it's going to cost them to continue to terrorize Jews. this all could have been self policed, limits placed internally at just how far and how intense the "protests" were allowed to become, but it was an orgy of Antisemitism, and now, at least this Jew, is glad the hammer is coming down, though I wish it were from someone else, i'm glad for it just the same
I mean, fuck antisemitism in any form, obviously...
...but I'm going to say "allow fascists to eliminate freedom of protest" has a spotty track record improving that particular issue.
This guy is in power in no small part due to whatever definition for not-fascist Americans you want to use not showing up because they feel compromise is beneath them. Maybe it's time to learn that lesson.
Well, no, the time to learn that lesson was November. I guess it's finding out time. For people too rightfully indignant about the genocide in Gaza to look past their own noses and to people in your situation alike, I'm afraid.
Friendly reminder that Trump refused to condemn a group of white supremacists chanting "Jews will not replace us".
He is not on your side. And, if history is any indication, allowing government to control speech and expression by fascist means is much more dangerous to Jews than any group of student protesters could ever be.
Mod reminder to keep it civil and no personal attacks when you reply to this. This person has had bad experiences, remember the human. Please report any personal attacks.
PS: Remember, if you want to convince people you need to meet them where they are. This person is your neighbor, not your enemy.
I'm sure it must be a stressful time for Jewish people. All hate crime is horrible. Many people, Jewish and non-Jewish, oppose the actions of Israel.
I do hope the protests, to stop US arms being sent to Israel, grow in strength. And I do what I can personally to help.
When looking at the numbers its no exaggeration to say that the Palestinian people are being slaughtered by the Israel military.
On October 7, 2023 Israel was attacked killing 1200 Israelis. Israel's response to the attack has been completely disproportionate and has now (as of June 2024) killed over 7,797 children. In the same time the conflict killed 53 children in Israel.
The most conservative estimate is that 7,797 Palestinian children have been killed, in the same time it is estimated that the total Israeli casualties; including military and civilian, including men, women, and children is 1200.
on April 24, 2024 with many thousands of Palestinian children already dead, the US gave 14 billion in aid to Israel
Neither US political party is stopping this.
Here are my sources, I am always interested to have other sources.
I tried to pick from a range of sources and tried to include any statistic that made my argument weakest. Most of the numbers come from June to August of 2024.
Sometimes couched as anti-Israel, we find supporters of discrimination in their spheres of influence, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), spouting prejudices with hubris while their party’s leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, remain mostly silent.
German Jews recognize they safely exist only through police protection, who park outside German synagogues to prevent anti-Semitic violence. In Poland, the home of Auschwitz, anti-Semitism has become so accepted it blatantly is part of the platform of the National Democratic Party, known as “Endeks.”
And they assert this bit of history as evidence:
From 1921 to 1935, there was a group named the Association of German National Jews (Verband national Deutsche Juden), whose goal was the total assimilation of Jews into German culture; the self-eradication of Jewish identity; the expulsion of all Eastern European Jews from Germany; and a radical hatred of Zionism. Sadly, these seem like the same goals of many Jews in America choosing to deny the faith and practices of their ancestors in favor of secularizing themselves. On some level — often unconscious — they believe if they deny their Judaism and go along with the anti-Semitic rhetoric, non-Jewish Americans will better accept them. Unfortunately, they are avoiding looking at history.
To me, it sounds like the argument is being framed as "us" Jews and "them" Jews making the mistake of trying to homogenize. That's tremendously ironic, as this type of thinking is exactly what led them to support Nazi Germany. The exact kind of language Trump use, aggressive, bombastic pursuit of "agitators" as undesirables, of ignoring antisemites and bigots Trump associates himself with, of dismissing his speech as a "rhetorical tool," is what German Jewish groups believed would protect them... Until Nazis came for them, too.
Maybe antisemetic violence should be curbed, but you should consider what's actually causing it, and how that "curbing" will be done.
"The Jews are the cause of Antisemitism" yes, how novel, why didn't anyone else think of that, oh, that's right, literally every other band of Antisemites throughout all time have used that line of reasoning,"why can't the Jews, you know, be less Jewish, we are absolutely within our rights to terrorize them until they see the light". "Maybe antisemitic violence should be curbed" "Maybe". Quite.