hypocrisy

"Free speech" only means the government can't pass laws saying you can't speak. Trump and his supporters practice their free speech by gathering, protesters practice their free speech by protesting. When you exercise your free speech, everybody else has the right to protest and call you an asshole even if the government can't. Just like when you shut down streets with a protest, people are allowed to call you an asshole for doing so. Whether Trump likes it or not, a LOT of people don't like what he has to say. He does have every right to say it, but they have every right to protest. That's how free speech works, it has to apply to everyone.

if the protesters were doing nothing but protesting, then yes, they would have been exercising free speech. however, they openly stopped it, blocked the road, and inconvenienced many people. there is a big difference between protesting and just being a jerk

That's how some forms of protest in America work. And the protest was just as much against Trump supporters as it was against Trump, which meant a large scale protest. I'm not saying it's right, it's annoying as shit, but it's one method of free speech. If it was't, abortion protesters would not be allowed to stand at clinic doors and scream at people.

I agree with envius. It wasn't the government who shut it down, it was the people, therefore it isn't as much violation of free speech as just telling someone to shut the fuck up. If what you said is true (and I honestly don't have time to look it up at the moment), then the protesters were indeed acting like assholes, however it is as envius said their own way of exercising their free speech, more specifically their disagreement with Trump.

So Envius, It is free speech when you shut down a highway and block people from receiving medical help, with the potential for someone to die

So envius, it's free speech when people's daily lives are interrupted? When they can't go shopping or go to work?

So envius, it's free speech if you're trying to shut down a group of people who aren't bothering anyone because they have a different political view than you and you just can't handle it?

Yeah, actually, it is, to all three. That's the thing about free speech...it applies equally to things you like and dislike. There are abhorrent things people are allowed to say, and shitty things that people are allowed to do that fall under that umbrella. Protest is an allowed form of free speech, and a common method of protest is blocking movement routes. Inconveniencing people is a way of making them take notice there's a problem, and pushing for more people to correct it. NOBODY likes it, that's the point, it's an act of civil disobedience. But if you put a cap on it because somebody used it for a cause you didn't like, you risk silencing a cause important to you later. The same consequences--can't get to work, medical emergency--crop up during large events, parades, traffic accidents, areas blocked off for celebrity/politician visits. You can't ban guns because a handful of nuts use them wrongly, and you can't deny protest because one made you mad.

It is not free speech to interrupt peoples lives cause Dequan got shot for robbing people

Protests on a scale that disrupt the running of everyday life are never based on a single event, just finally triggered by one. In Arizona and Wisconsin interviews say there have been an uptick in attacks on people targeted by Trump's rhetoric, with the violence being the basis and Trump's visit being the trigger. In the BLM protests, the shootings--justified or not--were triggers for problems simmering between minorities and police. Regardless of whether you feel it was necessary in your piece of the world, large numbers of people were experiencing something they felt needed to be addressed. If that many people perceive a problem, then there is usually SOME kind of problem. Protest can legally be fettered by rules about time and place, but it's still free speech.

@envius great arguments/writing/tone, and thank you for actually knowing how freedom of speech and the right to peaceful manifestation work. We need more people like you in these discussions.

So the poeple who were late to school/work, who had to find other ways making traffic longer and wasting fossil fuels, and possibly stop emergency vehicles...THAT'S NOT FREEDOM OF SPEECH. in many places it's illegal. But protesting on thr side of the road, passing out pamphlets, shouting into megaphones, that is free speech.