# Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2024-04-29 Protests serve a vital social function. They bring attention to issues of concern. Prolonged protest and conveyed sustained interest in addressing a problem. Protests matter. Whereas protests are socially important, for them to be effective, they need to be conducted lawfully. Freedom of speech, like all our rights, has limits. In terms of protests, they are expected to conform to time, place, and manner requirements. Protests should convey passion and, potentially, wit. They should be engaging, interesting, and challenging to ignore. Ideally, protests will touch the hearts and minds of those observing it. Protests should never make people feel threatened or unsafe. Ideally, protests avoid hatred of the other. Transcendence requires grace. Moving forward constructively requires synthesis. There is little point in simply switching one favored group for another. The goal should be to dismantle the hierarchy. If this can’t be achieved, then making the resulting hierarchy more just will have to do for now. Generally, the enforcement class should stay out. Nothing makes a nonviolent protest more violent than when the enforcement class starts “cracking skulls” to “maintain law and order.” Their presence is unwelcome and unhelpful. Protestors should do all they can to ensure there is no reason to call them. Conforming to the time, place, and manner requirements of free speech can help, but it doesn’t ensure that the enforcement class won’t be called in any way. The enforcement class, after all, exists to enforce the status quo. The youth of America have every reason to protest. The world they are set to inherit is one few want. They didn’t make it so. Those that came before did. If they are angry, it is fully justified. They should protest. Loudly and lawfully. #### Related Items [[Protest]] [[Progress]] [[Status Quo]] [[Hierarchy]] [[Power]] [[Behavior]] [[Freedom]]