Alt-Right v. antifa: chaos reigns.
What is the duty of the POTUS now, before this public violence becomes more deadly?
It’s the responsibility of the courts to follow settled, accepted First Amendment case law to address this issue when local jurisdictions do the same.
The First Amendment is not ‘unlimited’ – it is not the right to say anything one wishes anywhere or at any time he wishes; it is not the right for one to gather, demonstrate, or protest anywhere he wishes, at any time, for however long he wishes.
As long as local jurisdictions place restrictions and limits on protests and marches which are content neutral, motivated solely by the desire to promote public safety, where protesters and marchers have ample alternate avenues of expression available to them, those jurisdictions may prohibit demonstrations such as what occurred in Charlottesville, where those prohibitions are perfectly consistent with First Amendment jurisprudence, in no manner violating the right to free speech or freedom of assembly. (See, e.g.,
Frisby v. Schultz (1988))
Indeed, in Charlottesville, authorities sought to relocate the demonstration to a more appropriate, manageable venue that allowed the demonstrators to express their views and opinions while safeguarding public safety.
Unfortunately, a judge ruled in favor of the protesters – a clear failure on the part of the judiciary.
Just as laws and measures enacted by government are presumed to be Constitutional, so too should decisions made by local jurisdictions to limit or prohibit violent demonstrations be presumed to be Constitutional, as long as government is not seeking to silence speech because of its content – such as the speech of neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right – and as long as government affords demonstrators other venues where they might express themselves.