The anti-democratic Democrat
The curfew scared me more than the protests themselves.
Last week during the height of the recent protests, my sister pointed out NPR was discussing the protests and the curfew, and suggested calling in.
A viewpoint perhaps not expected in the conversation and a big statement, I’m not sure if De Blasio is thinking about running again, but I may not vote for him just on the curfew alone.
This is not what we do. One worries about anti-democratic, anti-speech shenanigans from certain sectors of the political sphere and society these days, but not the Democratic party mayor of New York City. The liberal (little L - not the party but the values system espoused in the constitution and bill of rights) part of ourselves, of the american experience, has been under assault enough lately, and degrading slowly.
This is the premise of this country, we’re not a nation of an ethnic, religious or geographic identity (like, for example, Italy or Spain), we’re a nation of ideals. This country is predicated on voicing dissent, even in hostile situations (what is a revolution after all), rebelling against the overreach of authority, and trying to constrain and limit authoritarianism and power of the government. The whole social contract, here, is premised on various rights, religious, representation, etc, and amidst them freedom of speech.
I worry at any limits or erosion of that. The last time NYC had a curfew was during World War II, and it wasn’t a social curfew - on the people not to get together, it was to conserve energy, more a moratorium on theater and big events using too much fuel. So through the last 80 years, we haven’t needed to do this once, during the various wars, the entire civil rights movement, Vietnam war protests, occupy wall street, etc. Why now?
“What would you say to those who support the mayor, pointing out that the curfew is working, and reducing looting?”
Two things:
One, you hear Cuomo and De Blasio speaking, often quite sensibly, but I was struck by the frequency, on this topic, that one word keeps coming up.
“Property. We have to protect property. “
It’s a constant pounding like banging a drum, permeated throughout their discussion of this moment. Do we have to protect property? Or do we have to protect people? Their lives, their rights, their safety? I know which I believe in.
Property doesn’t apply equally, hasn’t been available uniformly, to all demographics.
Property has insurance, and can be replaced.
Liberty doesn’t. Rights don’t. Lives can’t.
There is no insurance on freedom of speech, or indeed democracy for that matter. I can justify no equating of property, as something to protect, with lives, safety of the citizens, and rights. We should protect property, sure, it’s part of the general order of society, and protects the citizens that have it. But it is not on equal footing with We The People.
Much of the property destruction has been, at least that’s focused in the news, high end fashion stores and other relatively wealthy/successful enterprises. How much are they really going to be shuttered over this? Will they even notice the damages in their bottom line, I imagine it won’t even actually cost them anything.
This is not to say I support looting, it’s a crime, obviously. But condemning the entire premise of right to assemble over some criminal behavior, which ultimately doesn’t cost that much, when weighed against the ideals, the beliefs we espouse, seems cowardly.
I also, personally, always take issue with the ‘penalizing the whole for the actions of the few.’ You’d always hear this in school growing up, collective punishment. One class clown, goofball meathead would do something stupid, and everyone gets punished. It’s lazy.
The police don’t want us to judge them all on their few worst actors, (leaving alone whether we will or won’t). Surely we have to do the same for the protestors. Even all the more so as these are the citizens and their rights, this is what all of society, government, and indeed the police force itself is intended to work for, serve and protect.
Not to mention, in all this, the vast majority of protesters are behaving *admirably*. Many are even stopping or policing looting themselves, larger groups of protesters seems to self regulate and normalize, where occasionally smaller ones get out of hand. The mayor himself has confessed a number of the real problem actors have been from out of the city, but guess who gets the curfew?
And those heroes - those protesters stopping looting or standing in the way, policing the bad actors? Are doing that where The Police are not, are absent, are derelict in their duties. I never understood why the response has been to send out all the troops, all the police, in some large seemingly militarized response. It’s like the planes came over the english channel and we scrambled everything into response. Shouldn’t The Police response be targeted? Where is looting going on, and aggressively cracking down on that? I’d envision them wanting to enlist, recruit, the protestors, have them contribute reporting, to get to locations and moments of looting faster, and stop those lone criminal acts.
To return to our question, “what would you say that it’s working?” there’s a second concern, that is this is exactly what concerns me
That’s exactly the concern - If the curfew works, it normalizes it.
It starts the narrative for this mayor, or any other, that this is something you can do now, that this is ok behavior. This becomes just another tool and step the government can take, and we don’t know when, where, or how.
I’m not a constitutional scholar, there may be rules, laws, constraints at that level that will be used to challenge this and reign in future behavior. I hope those legal cases are taken up zealously and succeed. That said, now the precedent is there.
One thing Trump has taught us is norms don’t matter. All that matters is what you can get away with, and what’s written down as a rule/law. What if the next mayor is quite un-evenhanded and biased in their usage of this?
There is a parallel between the mayor imposing a curfew to shut down protests and speech, and many of the president’s actions recently. In addition to innumerable inappropriate, undemocratic actions since his inaugural, recently he’d called the state governors weak for not cracking down, shutting everything down. He suggested, and indeed it seems he wants, to send the military into the streets to stop protests. It seems apparent he’d love to shut down anything he doesn’t like.I’m not saying De Blasio and Trump are in the same place, they’re obviously not. I don’t know that De Blasio wants to stifle criticism of him, or shut down things he finds displeasing. But this action by the mayor, amidst many I like and most action in keeping with proper execution of his duties, is on the same continuum, and in the same direction, as the worst of what we’re seeing from the white house.
Do we believe in the right to assemble? Do we believe in voicing dissent, and freedom of speech? It used to be we’d do these in a war zone, that’s what birthed this great nation of ideas and beliefs.
Beliefs only mean something if you stick to them under pressure, when the chips are down, and when they’re challenged and unpopular.
Any leader is really (only) evaluated when times are tough and under crisis, that’s when we test their mettle.
I guess we’ve seen the mayor’s.