One would think that Alaska is far enough away from the other of the 48 states that the stupidity of intrusive and overreaching policies wouldn’t get in the way there.
But think again.
Last week Reuters posted a story out of Alaska that civil libertarians filed suit to challenge an Anchorage ban on sitting or lying on public sidewalks that they said was enacted partly as a response to one man’s protest outside of City Hall.
Um, hello Alaska! There is this thing called the First Amendment which guarantees the right to free speech as well as peaceful assembly!
So, Alaska wants to wipe out the opportunity for pickets, demonstrators, street musicians, and activists? Gone are the days of lying down in protest or holding up signs and getting people to honk their horns in support as they drive by.
In what may be the dumbest argument, Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan said that the people who partake in this public practice are creating a nuisance and are hazardous to sidewalk traffic.
Seriously? A public nuisance.
Mayor Sullivan, you are absolutely correct. Nothing screams public nuisance quite like Americans exercising their First Amendment right in a peaceful protest. Thank God Mayor Sullivan was not the Mayor of Birmingham or Greensboro, North Carolina during the Civil Rights Movement.
Mayor Sullivan, you are wrong on this one my friend. The true public nuisance is a government that continually tramples the rights of its citizens – which is exactly what you are doing in Anchorage.
