The Right to Fight

Many people have been concerned that our focus on 1st Amendment rights is going to somehow take away from the message of the 99%. First, I'd like to say that is not true. Secondly, it is the opinion of Occupy Dallas that every activist organization, no matter how diverse the causes may be, has a responsibility to protect the right to peaceful assembly.

If you are an activist, you must acknowledge that the only reason you can assemble and promote your message, is because someone else with a cause completely different than your own made sacrifices to ensure future generations would be able to speak out against injustice.

For example, you may not be a communist, but you can thank one that "Peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made a crime. The holding of meetings for peaceable political action cannot be proscribed". The outcome of De Jonge v. Oregon (1937).

The protesters we had on the street corner yesterday may not belong to a Union, but they can thank the Committee for Industrial Organization that stood up against New York Mayor Frank Hague in 1939. The outcome: "peaceful demonstrators may not be prosecuted for disorderly conduct." This case also secured streets and sidewalks as public forums.

And finally, to truly illustrate how someone else's cause, even one that disgusts and horrifies you, has shaped our rights I suggest you read up on the Brandenburg test. Without it, members of our movement might be thrown in prison for even metaphorically suggesting we drag Wall St. bankers from the building.

My point is this: If you are an activist and you are presented with the opportunity to affect positive change in the way the 1st Amendment is perceived in the eyes of the courts, (e.g. forcefully dispersing a group of protesters after issuing a permit; a permit obligating them to acquire an insurance policy that no insurance company can provide due to a loose organizational structure) then it is your duty to do so.

If others before you hadn't accepted the burden of that responsibility, where do you think we'd be right now? Not in Pioneer Park or Wall Street, that's for sure