Protest is a privilege, not a right?

Remember this from 2004?

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a group of volunteers who plan to toil at the Republican National Convention yesterday that he expected most protesters who come to the event later this month would "be reasonable," but he warned that "if we start to abuse our privileges, then we lose them."

Sounds like a school principal: if you abuse your privileges, you will lose them, tisk tisk.

Except we're talking about adults exercising their 1st Amendment-guaranteed right to protest their government. Your speech is an inalienable RIGHT, not a privilege. And there's a big difference between a right and a privilege. Rights are endowed by the Creator (or if you prefer, rights are natural). Privileges are granted by a higher human authority and can be rescinded at the whim of that same human authority.

The state always seeks to redefine our rights as privileges for obvious reasons. So that they can take them away. Remind the government often that your rights were not granted to you by them. Back off, government.