AP: Dawit Kelete rams into & kills Summer Taylor in Seattle

BTW, your "right to get where I'm going" is NOT as important as the right to life and free speech. It is by far less important.

 

You don’t have a right to get where you’re going.

 

You're rushing a sick or pregnant family member to the hospital. Street is barricaded by a protest without proper city sanction or an advance notice to citizens. You driving through or taking a 15-minute detour?

 

The right to peaceably assemble does put some emphasis on the word “peaceably.”

If a couple wanted to, for example, go to the courthouse to get a marriage license, their ability to do that should not be contingent on a protest line’s willingness to let them. The protest is no longer peaceful if it blocks basic services like marriage licenses. Likewise, if a protester comes up and decks you, like the guy in Wisconsin for decked, you’re not violating the First Amendment by defending yourself.

 

There’s no such thing as a right. It’s a temporary privilege.

 

To be clear, I’m specifically countering BTE's post that he will "drive through anything I can that a protester puts in my way," especially since, most often, protesters put their own bodies in the way.

Protesters blocking a roadway are, of course, breaking the law. I don’t think private citizens ought to run them over for the inconvenience or some imagined "right to get where I am going."

 

Now put the goalposts back where they were and try to have an honest discussion. I know being exposed as a selfish ass once again is troubling for you, but perhaps that should make you reconsider your thinking rather than engaging in such dishonest rhetorical tactics.

 

I didn't think I needed to stipulate that "anything a protester puts in my way" did not mean their bodies to be used as bowling pins.

 

Given that the story is about someone who did exactly that, it read to me that you would plow through a protest to get where you have to go. And, given the unlikelihood that protesters would blockade a road but then stay out of it while they protested, it seems to me that driving through anything protesters put in your way would include the protesters themselves. Glad to hear you don't intend to mow down protesters. I hope nobody's fight for equality inconveniences you in any way.

 

Never look down the barrel of a gun even if you think it's empty.

 

That.