What Are You Going To Do?

"I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters, you don't even know which side the protesters were on," Trump said. "But to allow someone to stand up and scream from the top of their lungs and nobody does anything about it is frankly — I think it's an embarrassment."

Would it matter which side the protesters were on? Could the side they espouse determine the response? It certainly does at Trump rallies where anyone from the other side gets manhandled and muscled out of the space. But should it matter that someone who disagrees with a government official shows up to protest that person?

Of course the answer lies in the Constitution and in the behavior of the protestor. Each of us is granted by the Constitution the right to address the government (in whatever shape or form that takes be it in person or by mail or electronic means, for redress of grievances). The Constitution is vague on what grievances so it has been generally understood to be any form of disagreement.  But the Constitution says that the address itself should be peaceable, so no weapons nor threat of violence. It doesn't say one cannot protest. It doesn't say one must be polite.

If we had not protested the English crown's treatment of the colonies, we would not be the country we are. Protest is at the heart of our nation's birth and it's at the heart of our hope for the future. We know what kind of country, what kind of government we expect. Or at least we used to.