The Washington Post (5/9/22) calls for “appropriate action” against peaceful protesters at anti-Roe justices’ homes—which according to the law the Post cites means up to a year in prison.
With the right to bodily autonomy on the line and protesters demonstrating outside of Supreme Court justices’ houses, the Washington Post editorial board (5/9/22) weighed in:
The right to assemble and speak freely is essential to democracy. Erasing any distinction between the public square and private life is essential to totalitarianism. It is crucial, therefore, to protect robust demonstrations of political dissent while preventing them from turning into harassment or intimidation. An issue that illuminates this imperative in sharp relief is residential picketing—protests against the actions or decisions of public officials at their homes, such as the recent noisy abortion rights demonstrations at the Montgomery County dwellings of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. The disruptors wanted to voice opposition to a possible overruling of Roe v. Wade, as foreshadowed by a leaked majority draft opinion last week. What they mainly succeeded in doing was to illustrate that their goal—with which we broadly agree—does not justify their tactics….
A Montgomery County ordinance permits protest marches in residential areas but bars stationary gatherings, arguably such as those in front of the Roberts and Kavanaugh residences. A federal law—18 U.S.C. Section 1507—prohibits “pickets or parades” at any judge’s residence, “with the intent of influencing” a jurist “in the discharge of his duty.” These are limited and justifiable restraints on where and how people exercise the right to assembly. Citizens should voluntarily abide by them, in letter and spirit. If not, the relevant governments should take appropriate action.
To be clear, the cited federal law states that the appropriate action taken against violators is that they “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
A search of the Post‘s website turns up no other instances of the editorial board applying any variation of the word “totalitarian” to the domestic context. In the Post‘s view, then, those people protesting an attempt by unelected government officials to give the state control over one’s own body—including, by the way, various state laws that deputize neighbors to report on neighbors—are the ones putting our country at risk of totalitarianism, and they should be punished with a fine and/or prison.
The Supreme Court ruled in Madsen v. Women’s Health Center (1994) that the government could not ban marches in front of the homes of abortion clinic employees.
No one has seriously argued that the peaceful protesters were “harassing” or “intimidating” the justices; they were exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and speak freely. The Post also refused to consider that, as many observers have pointed out, the Supreme Court itself (Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, 1994) has ruled that requiring anti-choice protesters—who, by contrast, have a documented history of harassment and intimidation—to stay more than 300 feet from clinic doctors’ private homes violated their First Amendment rights.
The Post‘s screed against protesters came days after the very same editorial board (5/3/22) charged that Samuel Alito’s draft opinion “would inaugurate a terrifying new era in which Americans would lose faith in the Court, distrust its members and suspect that what is the law today will not be tomorrow,” and that overturning Roe would be
a repugnant repudiation of the American tradition in which freedom extends to an ever-wider circle of people. By betraying this legacy and siding with the minority of Americans who want to see Roe overturned, the justices would appear to be not fair-minded jurists but reckless ideologues who are dangerously out of touch and hostile to a core American ethic.
The Washington (“Democracy Dies in Darkness”) Post presents itself as a great defender of democracy and freedom—unless, God forbid, your angry cries against attacks on those things might make a reckless, out-of-touch ideologue uncomfortable while enjoying his dinner.
ACTION: Please tell the Washington Post that its call for repression of peaceful assembly is incompatible with democracy.
CONTACT: You can send a message to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @washingtonpost.
Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.
Featured image: Washington Post depiction (5/10/22) of protest outside the Fairfax, Virginia, home of Justice Samuel Alito (photo: Kent Nishimura/EPA-EFE).
I’m still confused about what the Separation of Church and State actually means. I thought that it meant that religious beliefs were not a part of our Constitution , as religion is a private belief system and there are many different religions and interpretation for beliefs.
HOWEVER, in 21st century America, 4 or 5 justices seem to put their personal religious beliefs above the law. How is that possible in a democratic republic?
Besides, in terms of deaths, it seems that many citizens and states believe that the death penalty is a fair and righteous thing—-but still— why is it that a fetus is more important than a human being?
And why too are so many so interested in controlling a woman’s body? Should it also be made illegal for men not to waste any sperm—which might have become a human?
And too, forcing a woman to birth a rapist’s child would seem to be a very traumatic state for 9 months. Should the rapist be forced to bring up and educate the child? Probably not, as in America—so few seem to care about the children, many of whom are poor and in desperate need of medical care and even food. . Oh the irony, America .
So much for Republicans not liking “Activist Judges “.
Ask the politicians if this means Corporations will no longer be people under the 14th Amendment
I don’t see from your example that the Post used the word “totalitarian” as is indicated in your headline and the example cited. How do you justify your use of “totalitarian” in your headline? Remember, you have it in quotes.
It’s the last word in the second sentence of the Washington Post’s opinion quoted above by FAIR.
“Washington Post editorial board (5/9/22) weighed in: The right to assemble and speak freely is essential to democracy. Erasing any distinction between the public square and private life is essential to totalitarianism.”
to·tal·i·tar·i·an:
Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition
totalitarianism:
A form of government in which the state controls every aspect of the individual’s life and all opposition is suppressed.
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008
The protesters were protesting totalitarianism.
Interesting and good point Michael as I too didn’t read the word “totalitarian” quotation in the body of the article, other than in the headline. As a subscriber to WaPo I then went directly to the post article and didn’t see it there either. Hence is it likely Fair is doing exactly what they criticize the MSM about, relative to a given narrative ? In all likely-hood that is exactly the case.
It seems clear to me that the WaPo piece defines as totalitarian the use of so-called private spaces, such as streets outside judges’ homes, for political protests because it supposedly erases the difference between public and private. However, streets are public spaces. The protestors are not intruding on judges’ homes. FAIR’s commentary looks fair.
Wanna know what the elephant in the room is ? (about the WaPo part)
Companies like Amazon, CVS, RiteAid, Walmart … Are all responsible for the “doxing of the public” dump.
What do I mean? Make up any name you want…. for a website… just combine any of the following — people, look, peep, find, search, address, phone, cell — etc ALL THOSE COMPANIES – were getting direct information through a pipeline from them (at the registers) to said people finder sites.
That’s how it actually worked.. how did we “verify”.. by walking in,… giving names/addresses that didn’t exist yet — handing the info over — under their guise of “never sharing with third party bla bla”… and waiting.. scrapping the sites — until LO BEHOLD… there were the names– they were pipelining information through a network of those companies…. they filter it in slowly…
The burden to remove that information … left to the public… is huge — and for victim’s of domestic violence or harassment … was too much for most people — hundreds of hours scraping sites.. with no way of knowing when personal info pops up again.
That was a couple years ago:
Walk into xyz big box major company, And they might be plumbing every bit of info ..to half anonymous data sharing sites… that you have to threaten a lawsuit to… essentially “doxing the public”.. and leaving everyone in a situation that has never existed before..
In the 70, 80’s 90’s and 2000’s — You didn’t have a “press a button and get any personal info” “machine”… no such thing existed. This is all new to the public. You could have your info removed from yellow pages/white pages. And that’s why… Nobody should bear that burden – if their is a reason to keep privacy.
SOO..
They have an issue with ” Erasing any distinction between the public square and private life ” .. Really?????
… it’s a bunch of companies mostly owned by the same equity companies using the same practices. And their CEO’s only own a percent. That’s a version of soft totalitarianism.– what they have been up to this last few years.
Ohhh.. they don’t like that turned around on friends in politics huh…
And we still have no data privacy laws! And in most states… for real people.. who need it to work the way it used to. At that time, people had to go through a great deal of trouble to “dox” people — if someone needed the safety of not having personal information shared.
Ohh..sure the writers at wapo .. they got us covered!
At the end of an article describing how the WaPo describes women fighting for reproductive freedom “totalitarian,” the author of the piece tells readers to be polite in their responses.
Is why women lost Roe? They weren’t polite enough. Fvck this tone policing and gatekeeping.