Following on my earlier comments about George Soros' organizations being behind the anti-Trump demonstrations on Chicago and following venues, more evidence has presented itself. Jacinta Gonzolez, 25, from New Orleans, is the Lead Organizer of the Congress of Day Laborers and a Soros Justice Fellow. She and others shut down the highway leading to one of this weekend's Trump rallies in Arizona. Her bio appears on Soros' https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/jacinta-gonzalez-goodman Open Society Foundations website. She has a Facebook account as well. Commercially printed Black Lives Matters placards were on full view at the entrances to the two Trump rallies, shown on live television. The activist protests these past years are worrisome. I don't believe the main street media fairly reports on who is organizing the events. Not everyone hears the conservative radio talk shows broadcast on domestic MW stations, both sides of the opinions on the Soros-funded Black Lives Matter activist disruptions in places like Ferguson and Columbia, Chicago and Baltimore, the dichotomy of police brutality snd police being killed, consternation of both political parties with each other over the inability to agree upon federal budgets in recent years, and the ballooning national debt during the Obama administration. I would suggest to board members overseas to listen to the Voice of America for, hopefully, a balanced view of what goes on here. The VOA does not broadcast to the USA, but its website is open to all. There are many RSS feeds for those who prefer feed readers. I find the tone of the VOA coverage is less frenetic, and I often read of newsworthy domestic events unreported by the main street medis. We may not be divided as it was during the height of the Vietnam War, but IMHO there are significant unhappy population segments for reasons of loss of jobs (think of recent trade agreements), crime (exemplified by the high murder rates in inner cities such as Chicago, as one example, and the cartels' murder and kidnappings in the American Southwest as drugs and guns flow north), and other reasons. As with any discussion of political views there are no hard and fast divisions of opinions. It isn't always easy to discern who is expressing an opinion. (I liken the differences to a gray scale bar used to adjust screen colors on computer monitors used for photo editing.) The dissenters, such as those protesting Trump, are unhappy with the current state of this country and have a right to speak publicly about their concerns. So be it. The dissenters have the right to form political parties and proffer candidates. These dissenters do NOT have the right to do is abridge my rights to my family's safety, beliefs and lifestyle. The full force of the law and the legal system, in my opinion, should be brought to bear on protesters violating the rights and safety of those who choose not to carry on in a detrimental manner.
As long as their protests are safe and legal, I am totally in favor of their right to protest. Should violence be perpretated at some of these campaign events though, that goes against the pale. However, I think most of the violence has been perpetrated by Trump supporters. Demonstrators should not be blocking public access roads though. They are over stepping if they are doing that.
Most of them are not safe nor legal. Not only are funds being misused and coming from illegal sources and passed off to individuals who are known criminals, felons, and/or terrorists to stir up issues with the community and the people they are pitted against, they are used to cause violence and destruction to private property, federal property (in some cases) and businesses that have no recourse against many of them. I don't see how that can be safe or legal in any sense. If you want to protest and hold a sign or stand on the sidewalk in a designated area to say what you have to say peacefully, that is something the law allows for. Standing in the middle of the street to intentionally block traffic, keep people from going to work, making it home, making it to the hospital, or harassing them and attacking their vehicles and the people in them is not legal protest. Burning down buildings and stealing from local businesses is not legal protest, either. It doesn't matter whether they're supporting Trump, Bernie Sanders, or Santa Klaus. If they are blocking the road and harming people, that's a terrorist threat and it needs to be responded to accordingly to keep the people and citizens safe from it regardless the source. I don't see how any of what has been done can be considered safe or legal no matter who is looking at it or how the media or the people organizing and supporting those events want to spin it. It's like a burglar trying to justify their robberies of individuals because they needed to make a living by doing so.
At the end if the day it's people's right to protest, and while the main issue here is how they do it and if it's done legally or not, rather than they shouldn't be, or have no right to do it in the first place. Will these protests make any difference anyway? I very much doubt that they're going to change Trumps mind, especially with him being on a roll at the moment.
If they are not breaking laws, they have the right to protest. If they break the laws they are arrested like the guy who rushed the stage. It is funny, really funny watching people who defended Clive Bundy now talking about ´protesters´ .. It is funny when a dozen guys with shutguns, one of which was killed for drawing a weapon at police are defended, but crowds blocking a highway are terrible people. Trump brought this on himself. He calls all mexicans rapists, talks about banning muslims from the country, and at his rally tells people to punch people and he will pay their legal bills.
Those that wish to disrupt peaceable assembly are anti-democracy and they should be ashamed of themselves. And anyone who supports or defends such tactics is just as bad.
People have a right to air their disagreement with any system just as those defending a cause have the right to. As long as the protests are peaceful and not being disruptive, however, this might not be easy because the tolerance level of both factions seems to be very low and this would have resulted in the many clashes between the two sides.
They are factions now are they? Trump supporters are a loud under-educated minority. Many of them aspire to violence and Trump has made polarizing comments in public that serve to encourage unbalanced individuals to act violently. Trump doesn't have very much actual support even if he does win the nomination. He is taking advantage of a broken system and playing on the fears of those that are easily fooled by his nonsense. It is the same thing Hitler did to rise to power. First past the post voting with to many contenders dividing up the vote has allowed Trump to move ahead further towards nomination despite the majority of those voting in primaries not supporting him. When the majority of votes are divided up among all the other candidates Trump wins with a small fraction of the votes by virtue of having the most. With enough players on the field a candidate could win the nomination with as little as 5% of the total just by virtue of the other candidates having less the 5% each. You get the picture now I hope. With first past the post, the most votes doesn't always equal the majority. With this type of voting and the way delegates are selected Trump could win the nomination even the majority of republicans do not support him. It is crazy.
There's nothing wrong with protests that are on the calmer side and don't end in injury or destruction. I actually find it nice that people in this country are standing up for the things that they want and believe, no longer letting the government and media walk all over them.
