Enforced bias

To the editor:

 Mark Twain is credited with saying “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” We are seeing that poetry across university campuses nationwide. As they have throughout U.S. history, police departments are treating liberal protesters exercising their constitutional rights like rioters.

Almost without exception, when liberals peacefully assemble, as guaranteed under the First Amendment — as they did during Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Vietnam War and at Kent State University, among other protests – the police step in, often aggressively as they have this past week.

But it’s quite a different story when the protests have conservative causes. Even though armed militias entered the Michigan State House and surrounded the governor’s home, law enforcement did nothing. The same was true when the Bundy clan, backed by the Oath Keepers, occupied federal lands in Nevada and Oregon.

The excuse being used now is that the protesters are creating a threatening environment for Jewish students. Does anyone think that wasn’t true at the University of Virginia when neo-Nazis marched there in August 2017 chanting “Jews will not replace us”? Or how do you think Black Americans felt when Tea Party protesters gathered throughout 2009 carrying signs saying “send the monkey back to Africa” referring to the nation’s first Black president? Where were the riot helmets and batons then?

Of course, the police say they must use force when protesters refuse to vacate. What happened to the right to “stand your ground”? Is that only applicable to those armed like George Zimmerman or Cliven Bundy?  

I, for one, am sick of this double standard. Either we all have First Amendment rights of speech and assembly or no one does.  

Joseph Cannisi