If You Limit ANY Free Speech, This Is What You Get
By Joe Jarvis
ActivistPost.com
APRIL 23, 2018
The law originally targeted the KKK. Now it has been used to arrest people protesting against white supremacists.
And that is why free speech is so important.
Plenty of people would love to see new laws to stop white supremacists from exercising their–albeit offensive–free speech.
But as this 1951 law demonstrates, the law as it is intended is not always how it is applied.
Faced with hundreds of demonstrators rallying against a crowd of neo-Nazis in Newnan, local and state authorities turned to a little-known Georgia law adopted in 1951 to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
The law, which makes it illegal to wear a mask at most public events, was cited in several of the arrests of counterdemonstrators who joined a protest Saturday against white supremacists.
And the irony was not lost upon the organizers of the counterdemonstration, who were fuming Sunday that a law aimed at weakening white supremacists was used to arrest protesters who opposed a neo-Nazi rally.
There are so many problems with this law. Why are masks not protected forms of expression? What about hats, hoods, and sunglasses? At what point do those fit the definition of a mask?
Ironically, police routinely wear gas masks and face-covering riot helmets at these kinds of events. Apparently, the law doesn’t apply to them. But that is fitting since most laws don’t apply to the people who enforce them.
Have you ever threatened to shoot someone with a rifle because they had a mask on? Me neither. Police are a different breed.
A video posted on social media by freelance journalist Daniel Shular appeared to show authorities scuffling with counterdemonstrators. Authorities demanded that the counterprotesters remove their masks, and the footage showed an officer raising his rifle at demonstrators.
The Rest…HERE
