Right, Which Uses 1st Amendment To Shield Own Views, Seeks to Deny Rights for Palestine Support
DeSantis takes unfounded anti-immigrant swipe at protests
The political right, which often shields its own unpopular views behind the protection of the First Amendment, would seek to deny the same for those protesting in support of Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas attacks against Israel last weekend.
Prominent right-wing media and political figures are taking sharp aim at those demonstrations popping up across the United States in recent days in support of the Palestinian people and their political autonomy.
Such protests have happened in Chicago, at Harvard University near Boston and elsewhere.
In particular, those on the right are attacking the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization for its solidarity with the Palestinians, who typically live under conditions of brutality and extreme poverty in Gaza which are often likened to Apartheid.
“Now, while most of the world is disgusted by this Hamas attack, Black Lives Matter liked it. The group's Chicago chapter announced they stand with Palestine and included this image of the paratrooper, as in the terrorists that parachuted into Israel to behead babies,” right-wing Fox News commentator Jesse Watters said on-camera, referring to media reports of infants murdered during the weekend attacks. “BLM stands with them. BLM officially burned through all their political capital now, plus they burned through millions in donations. They spent the money on mansions. This is the true face of BLM. They are on the side of terrorists. They just announced it. And they are not alone.”
Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who's running for the Republican nomination for president, took even stronger aim at the protesters.
“Then you see demonstrations in New York City, in places, where they’re cheering on Hamas and cheering on the destruction and the depravity. We’ve got some serious problems. Look, if you don’t like this country, you should not be in this country,” he said in an interview with a right-wing talk show. “I don’t know why we’ve allowed — it’s not just illegal immigration, it’s also legal immigration.
“If you’re that supportive of those types of attacks against one of our allies, chopping off heads of babies, I don’t know why we would want you in this country to begin with,” he added, claiming without evidence that pro-Palestine demonstrations were organized by non-Americans.
The truth is that the right-wing US Supreme Court has affirmed First Amendment protection when the unpopular views are from those on the right.
Such was the case in Snyder v. Phelps, involving fundamentalist Christians from the Westboro Baptist Church who picketed the funeral of Lance Cpl Matthew Snyder who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq. Westboro members protested the funeral over their opposition to gay and lesbian Americans.
Chief Justice John Roberts found that speech on public issues — such as opposition to gay rights — is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment because it serves the “the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
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