What happens when the public square isn't public anymore?
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This is the 200 block of Central Avenue in Downtown St. Pete. The sidewalks and Central Avenue itself are owned in common by the rest of the residents of St. Pete and me. In other words, it's public property. As public property, I can assemble freely there and so long as I'm obeying the laws, no one can make me leave should I want to stand on that sidewalk.
These rights are guaranteed me by the First Amendment to the Constitution with the following words:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of faith, or prohibiting the free workout thereof; or abridging the liberty of speech, or of the clicking; or the right of the people peaceably to bring together, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This way that I also can stand there with a collection of like- or unlike-minded human beings. We can preserve signs and symptoms if we need to protest some thing. We can bypass out leaflets advocating a motive. Or we are able to simply stand there and take inside the scenery.
Our right to gather is assured through Sections Four and Five of the Florida Constitution:
SECTION 4. Freedom of speech and press.?Every man or woman can also talk, write and put up sentiments on all subjects however will be liable for the abuse of that proper. No law will be surpassed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. In all crook prosecutions and civil actions for defamation the reality may be given in evidence. If the matter charged as defamatory is real and changed into published with accurate reasons, the party shall be acquitted or exonerated.
History.?Am. Proposed by way of Constitution Revision Commission, Revision No. 13, 1998, filed with the Secretary of State May five, 1998; followed 1998.
SECTION 5. Right to collect.?The people shall have the right peaceably to assemble, to instruct their representatives, and to petition for redress of grievances.
The rights to unfastened assembly and to petition grievances are a fundamental a part of what makes my citizenship so precious. However the ones same rights are what make our representative democracy so messy. Some humans take offense at protests and some human beings will take extremely good pains to silence opposition.
Opposition and dissent are not just rights even though, they may be duties. Any try to silence public dissent or to thwart the right to free meeting is a danger to you, irrespective of your politics.
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This is Main Street in Lakewood Ranch, a master deliberate community around 30 miles to my south in Bradenton, Fl. It looks as if a major avenue everywhere however there are some wonderful and essential differences.
For starters, the sidewalk, the road, the buildings and the bushes are not owned in commonplace through the human beings of Bradenton. They're owned with the aid of Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, Inc. Shroeder-Manateee Ranch, Inc is the employer that evolved Lakewood Ranch. This makes Lakewood Ranch's Main Street a Potemkin Village and personal property. As such, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Articles Four and Five of the Florida Constitution do not observe.
Residents of Lakewood Ranch who need to stand on that corner can be escorted off that nook for any motive at all. If they want to protest some thing or hand out leaflets, they can't. There's no proper to free speech nor is there a proper to redress of grievances.
I'm positive maximum folks that pass to deliberate communities by no means think about that, but there may be a extremely good massive and often hidden trade off to transferring to an area that appears so peaceful. Residents of such locations can't exercising a few pretty fundamental factors to what makes america specific.
I think about this often and I'll never understand why anybody would willingly move to a place that operates under some kind of corporate martial law. Is not having to rub shoulders with your social lessers worth it? That's a rhetorical question.
All of this came to a head in Florida on May twenty sixth, 2011. Florida Governor Rick Scott held a finances signing ceremony inside the center rectangular of a grasp deliberate network referred to as The Villages.
Rick Scott has a almost pathological want to avoid dissent and as someone with a 29 percent approval rating six months after taking office I can almost see why. Almost.
Anyhow, Governor Scott chose to sign the new nation finances in front of considered one of his few constituencies, rural retirees. In order to do it, he needed to keep a price range signing on personal assets for the first time in Florida's history. That's OK, though. The Villages' crucial rectangular is similar to a metropolis square everywhere, right?
Wrong.
On May 26th, the Republican Party of Florida leased The Villages' central square and before the actual ceremony started, the Republican Party of Florida instructed the Sumter County Sheriff's department to sweep the crowd and remove anybody who didn't support the Governor. Here it is, caught on video:
More than a dozen people were escorted off the property, despite the fact that the ones escorted had been affiliation dues-paying citizens of The Villages.
When confronted about it, Governor Scott's office denied removing anybody and then when they couldn't deny away that video footage, they claimed that no one knew what actually happened that morning. Here are some news links from the end of May that describe the events in detail. Here . Here . Here .
As appalling as it is that Governor Scott decided to have his ceremony on private property, it probably didn't violate any laws. It certainly violated decency and the fundamental way American government is run, but all he and his supporters were doing was taking advantage of private property laws. They were also playing on the widely held misperception that the centers squares in planned communities are public spaces. The folks who were removed from the budget signing know that first hand that there's nothing public about a pretend town square in a planned community.
Our rights to things like loose speech, free meeting and redress of grievances are as fundamentally sacred as they're non-partisan. Political winds shift all the time and the birthday party in energy today generally isn't there for terribly lengthy. What by no means modifications, or as a minimum shouldn't alternate, are the fundamentals of what make us, us.
Someone who's retaining a sign you do not believe isn't your enemy. You can also discover it reprehensible or you could accept as true with what ever's on that signal, but the holder isn't always your enemy. That signal holder is your fellow citizen, however unsuitable you may think he's. Your actual enemy is a person who seeks to dispose of the signal and silence what's he's trying to mention.
Public areas and the general public sphere do not come lower back once they are long gone. As more and more grasp planned groups spring up across the us of a, consider the implications of all of city squares that aren't surely city squares at all. How do you preserve a consultant democracy alive in all those privately held "cities" and "town squares?"