So Who Needs a Constitution?
When “law enforcement” is treated as constitutionally untouchable, something has gone wrong.
The First Amendment protects the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances, meaning protest is not a courtesy extended by the state but a core feature of constitutional order.
Law enforcement authority is derivative, not supreme: officers are empowered to enforce the law, not to outrank the Constitution itself.
While the government may regulate time, place, and manner to prevent violence or genuine emergency obstruction, peaceful protest does not lose protection merely because it interferes with or complicates enforcement in real time.
What remains, then, is not retreat but restraint—continuing lawful duties while facilitating constitutional rights through the least restrictive means, tolerating inconvenience short of harm, and practicing disciplined forbearance.
A right that exists only when it does not inconvenience power is not a right at all; it is permission, revocable at will—and that quietly replaces constitutional government with unconditional authority.
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