Be careful not to take protests too far

Recently there have been many protests in Olympia, and all around the United States. People are protesting against President-elect Trump, against the North Dakota Access Pipeline and against numerous of other things they feel strongly about. And there are also different ways people go about protesting. There is marching, peaceful protests, violent protest, and so many others. But when does protesting go too far?

The First Amendment states that we have freedom of speech, religion, petition, press, and opinion. The government is also not forced to do anything unless they believe protests and actions will have an immediate, harmful effect on them.

Has protest gone too far if people are being held up on their way to work? If their property is destroyed? If they are hurt? When do the police have the right to break up a protest? Or should they? If large groups of people are protesting an issue, they obviously feel very strongly about it. They may not know when or if they have crossed a line.

There isn’t a set of guidelines for protests, since that sort of defies the purpose of a protest.

So instead of telling people what they can and can’t do, we just need to know how far we will go to fight for what we believe in. And we need to understand that these people are trying to make the world better.

This story was originally published December 26, 2016 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Be careful not to take protests too far."