Breaking up Occupy Protests and the Constitution

Gone to my good friend Wikipedia again (have a think on the bold parts):

“In the United States, inalienable rights are derived from the people themselves and are protected primarily by the enumerated articles to the US Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Persons may also have inalienable rights protected by the state. Since the United States Constitution is a design of limited and restricted government and has absolutely nothing to do with the private state citizen, then it stands to reason that all inalienable Rights are guaranteed either by nature or by the Creator.

The provisions providing for rights under the Bill of Rights were originally binding upon only the federal government. In time, most of these provisions became binding upon the states through selective incorporation into the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. When a provision is made binding on a state, a state can no longer restrict the rights guaranteed in that provision.

Examples of provisions made binding upon the states are the 6th Amendment's guarantee of a right to confrontation of witnesses, known as the Confrontation Clause, and the various provisions of the 1st Article, guaranteeing the freedoms of speech, the press, religion, and assembly.”

This may be a question that should be answered: reading the above, I would think that the 1^st amendment takes precedence over local law (e.g. park is closed between 11pm and 6am, in those times you’ll be trespassing). If so, then right now all arrests made in Chicago, Denver, etc etc would be illegal.

At the same time, New York’s plans to change the law to make protests illegal under local law would then also not give the result that is looked for.

By the way: I signed a petition asking Chicago’s mayor to stop arrests, and gave it the same reasoning: 1^st amendment in my view takes precedence over local law.

Again, I am looking in from the outside, and I understand that current protests do threaten the power positions of a group of people. Naturally, they will fight, as happened in Egypt (applauded by USA government), Tunesia (also applauded, they are now having free elections as we speak), as is happening in Yemen (USA govt with protesters), Syria (ditto), Libya (well…), etc etc

Only at home, the government (local, federal) seems to not appreciate protests even as the root causes are clear: USA is in many ways a 3^rd world country where the Bill of Rights is no longer guaranteed to its citizens. Though the right to bear arms (or arm bears) is vehemently defended, most citizens live in fear of their lives because of it. Rights to education, counsel, vote, privacy and assemble are no longer defended by the government, unless you have money.

And 99% of the people who are supposed to vote for a government that defends their rights don’t have the money.