Letter writer: Kids have right to protest

Graphic by Lori Deaton

A 70-year-old toddler is throwing tantrums in the White House instead of creating jobs for the middle- and under-class folks who got him there. So-called grown-ups in both major political parties are cowering in Congress, afraid to stick up for their own self-professed ethics and morals lest they make less money from the taxpayer-funded trough.

One of our local career politicians has nothing better to do to serve his community than to go on TV and criticize parents who supported 10-year-old children when those kids asked to participate in the healthy civic activity of public peaceful demonstration. Whether you or I voted for Trump or not, these kids have a right to speak their own truth to power, and if you don’t like that, then go live in some other country where free speech is against the law.

When I was 10 years old, my mother went with me to tear down Ku Klux Klan rally posters to protest injustices in my community. Yeah, we got death threats from those cowards who were scared to show their faces, but so what? It helped me grow a stronger spine. More power to these 10-year-old protest organizers. They show more guts and honesty than a lot of grown-ups I hear whining about — and doing little about —the state of American democracy.

— Tom Kerr
Alexander

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3 thoughts on “Letter writer: Kids have right to protest

  1. John Penley

    The Tea Party, Republicans,CPAC and Conservatives have been railing on about Government spending and the National Debt for years. Trump gets elected and announces massive spending on Immigrant roundups and deportations, a border wall, a new nuclear arms race and military buildup, national Infrastructure rebuilding projects, Federal police enforcement against legal marijuana [so much for State’s Rights], expanding use of private prisons and who knows what else and none of the entities I mentioned above are even talking about it and are cheering him on. Just goes to show you how totally hypocritical they really are. Go Trump raise the National Debt and break the bank. He also announced large corporate and other tax cuts so how in hell is he going to pay for all the new spending he has just announced ?

  2. “Kids have right to protest”

    I was expecting to see an example of someone claiming that kids do NOT have the right to protest. Maybe it will be in a follow up letter in the future. In the meantime, I have no evidence of the claim to which the writer directs his main complaint.

    Therefore, the common unaltered understanding remains that kids DO have a right to protest and “local career politicians” DO have the right to criticize them. I think the science is settled on that.

    The only question now is whether kids who protest after the example of their parents have a right to be shielded from the consequences of their acquiescence. I should think not.

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