The Price of Protest: An Open Letter to America’s Children

The following words were inspired by the anti-Zionist protests in “elite colleges and universities” across the United States which in turn were inspired by Hamas declaring war on Israel.  Full disclosure: the author of this piece is a Zionist, someone who affirms that the Jewish state of Israel has the right to exist, even if that right is based solely on the spoils of war.  I also declare that I, like so many Israelis, want Benjamin Netanyahu gone.  I further declare that anti-Zionism is 100% antisemitism, that it is 100% Jew hatred, both of which sentiments are quite legal in these United States, as sentiments.

The right to protest is based on these two parts of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”  Speech and assembly.

Consider this: even if SCOTUS had ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is constitutional everywhere, “everywhere” does NOT include private property.  Everywhere does NOT prevent Walmart from refusing you entrance – into its store or even its parking lot – bearing arms.  Private property trumps your Constitutional Rights!  Similarly, you cannot compel the NY Times to print your Op Ed or your letter; your freedom of speech begins and ends with your right to speak and to publish, not to compel a platform or a publication.  Freedom of speech only protects you from government prosecution, it does NOT provide you a platform for your speech nor does it protect you from the consequences of your speech, like being refused an interview at the law firm of your choice or being fired by your private employer.  Similarly, the freedom to peaceably assemble protects your right to assemble, as long as you are assembling on government property; it does NOT protect your right to assemble on anyone’s private property.  So, when a private college or university loses patience with your freedom to assemble on their grounds and tells you to depart, that is the end of your right to peaceably assemble; from that moment on, you are not peaceably assembling, you are trespassing.  And freedom to assemble surely does not protect you from legal consequences when you take over a building that does not belong to you, whether or not you damage it.

In sum, you have the constitutional right to be stupid (I know the difference between ignorant and stupid; the only thing that protects you from the charge of stupidity is your youth, your lack of maturity), but you do not have the right to be protected from the consequences of your stupidity.

Finally, no doubt you pat yourselves on the back for your activism under the guise of Civil Disobedience, the invention of a great American, Henry David Thoreau, who did prison time for his civil disobedience.  Civil Disobedience always ends up doing prison time – do a minute’s research on Martin Luther King Jr, on Mohandas Gandhi and on Nelson Mandela, all of whom were disciples of Thoreau, all of whom paid the price of civil disobedience: prison time.  Civil disobedience is NOT a RIGHT, it is a tactic of protest, and its cost is prison time.

Freedom has a price, and that price is responsibility.  Responsibility is something that you take on when you grow up, that is what marks you as an adult.  As long as you believe that your freedoms are absolute, so long will you be children.

A wise man said, “think before you act.”  Be wise for your future’s sake.

You have a constitutional RIGHT to be antisemitic, but the world has the right to shun you.  

Signed,

 {A friend of this blog}