As I pointed out on another thread a lot of the trouble around many of the confronations, violence and cancellations around conservative speakers on campus is caused by a loophole in the law. Mass picketing in industrial strikes is banned by the Taft Hartley Act and equivalent legislation in the UK and other countries. These rules are strictly enforced and as a result the kind of large scale threatening and violent mobs that were seen on picket lines, as recently as the 1980s in the UK, are now a thing of the past. Would be violent picketers know that law enforcement will make it utterly hopeless for them to even attempt this course of action so they don't even bother trying.
There is however a serious loophole in the legislation in that non strike related 'political' pickets, such as the antifa mobs seen in places like Berkeley. Now I can understand why Democratic politicians don't want to close this loophole. They want the threat of violence to remain there so it can be used as an excuse to apply a "heckler's veto" to political speech they don't like. For Republican politicians to fail to close this loophole however is short sighted .
Here is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. An article in HuffPo by someone called Michelangelo Signorile
Quote "Starting today and from here on, no elected official ― certainly those in the GOP defending and supporting Trump on a variety of issues, for example ― should be able to sit down for a nice, quiet lunch or dinner in a Washington, DC eatery or even in their own homes. They should be hounded by protestors everywhere, especially in public ― in restaurants, in shopping centers, in their districts, and yes, on the public property outside their homes and apartments, in Washington and back in their home states.
These people also attend functions and fundraisers at night (which are easy to locate), and these events should be disrupted, inside and out, until these politicians answer to the recklessness in which they are engaged. Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, should not be able to attend any function, eat in public, or enjoy dinner at home without hearing people expressing how his actions are harming their lives and their families’ lives in terrible ways. " End Quote
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/protesting-donald-trump-comey_us_591313d1e4b050bdca61270cNow if a union organiser were to organise this kind of behaviour during a strike, aggressive mass harassment and intimidation of management and strike breakers then he could expect a heavy police response followed by some time in jail. There aren't many people arguing that those laws should be changed.
There really isn't any good reason why Republican lawmakers should continue to allow this loophole in picketing law that exempts non industrial 'political' pickets from the same laws that apply to union strike pickets.
