 So, since the start of the Black Lives Matter protests this year after the murder of George Floyd, we have seen a plethora of different responses to the protesters. You know, in some cities, they're voting to disband their police departments. We're seeing some cities vote to defund police departments, and then, you know, in some Republican-run cities, they just are not responding at all. They think that these protests are inconvenient and makes them look bad. They don't like it, so they're just ignoring them entirely. And then, you have the worst of the worst, and you have some cities trying to outright criminalize all of these protests because they don't like them. And what we saw from Tennessee governor believe is probably the worst that I've seen with regard to how someone in power is handling these protests, because he's trying to, you know, rather than speaking with the protesters and addressing their concerns, make it illegal for them to protest by scaring them. Because what he's trying to do is make it so that way effectively, if you protest, you could end up losing your right to vote. Yeah, so this is brazenly unconstitutional, but he's trying to find a way to subvert the Constitution by criminalizing protests in a really sneaky and nefarious way. So as Kelley Mena of CNN reports, Tennessee governor Bill Lee signed a legislation on Thursday that will increase penalties for individuals caught camping on state property. Bill HB 8005 increases the punishment for camping on state property from a misdemeanor to a class E felony that is punishable by up to six years in prison. Signing of the bill comes as protesters have been camping outside the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, demanding a meeting with the Republican governor to discuss racial inequality and police brutality since June, according to the Washington Post. Campers are also asking for the removal of a Nathan Bedford forest bust at the state Capitol. Forest was a slave trader and an early Ku Klux Klan leader. Campers would first be given a warning, and those who refused to leave would then be charged with a felony. Notably convicted felons in Tennessee lose their right to vote, which could be a major blow to protesters amid a high stake selection year. The bill was part of a larger package of a legislation signed by Lee that increases penalties for certain crimes like vandalism, disorderly conduct, inciting a riot, and offense as the first responders. The new bill took effect immediately, according to the Tennessean. So there's a lot to unpack here, but first of all, just understand, like, if this governor really wanted these protests to go away, they're asking for something really simple here. Meet with them, try to address their concerns legislatively. But he wants them to go away, and rather than meeting with them, he's just saying, you know what? Let's try to disincentivize protests in general and criminalize these protests. Now I know what you're thinking, well, this doesn't directly lead to them losing the right to vote, but understand the way that they're trying to create this sort of loophole so that way they can penalize protesters by stripping them of the right to vote. If you criminalize elements of the protests and say, well, this act in particular that we don't like is now a felony, and that leads to you losing your right to vote, well, effectively what are they doing? They're threatening the protesters by saying, if you don't go away, if you don't stop occupying these premises, you're not going to be able to vote because you're not going to affect change by trying to reach out to us, but you're really not going to be able to affect change if you lose your right to vote. So if you want that to happen, then keep doing what you're doing, keep protesting, keep staying here and occupying these buildings, and you're going to lose the right to vote. This is extremely, extremely disgusting. Now this is why it was really wrong for liberals to clutch their pearls when Bernie Sanders in the left was talking about the need to re-enfranchise felons and people who are currently incarcerated, because this is what happens. If you make it so that way felons can't vote, then it's really easy to disenfranchise them because then you could just change the law, you say, okay, well, people are doing this, so I'm going to elevate the crime that they're committing to felony, vandalism now, if you spray paint on a building, that's a felony, and as a result you lose your right to vote in Tennessee because we don't like it, because rather than stopping all of the protests by meeting with you and trying to address your concerns about a serious issue, we're just gonna say fuck it, you're gonna lose the right to vote, we're gonna punish you even more, like there's the carrot and the stick approach, and this is the stick approach to say the least. It's disgusting, it's morally reprehensible. This governor thinks that the way to get these protests to go away, the way to deal with the problem, is by pouring gasoline on the fire, and I mean we all know that this law is going to be abused, right? Maybe even if someone isn't occupying or camping out at a state building or the state capitol, they may just be like loitering or protesting, police officers will just grab them and say, well they're camping, so they get a felony, now they can't vote, like do you understand? Like we know this is what's going to happen, we know this is going to lead to abuse, even if they follow this draconian law, they're still going to be even more abuse, that's the product of this law, because this type of law is inherently abusive, so for them, you know, anyone who disobeys their draconian laws, they're gonna say, all right well you don't get to vote anymore. So think about this though, like if you disagree with the Black Lives Matter protests, apply this to other situations, like I don't think personally we're going to be able to get Medicare for all unless we occupy the US capitol, right? Unless we actually sit in the offices of politicians, but as a punishment, imagine if they said, all right if you stay here, if you camp here, that's a felony, and in your state you lose the right to vote, like imagine what a slippery slope it would be if we start saying particular protest acts are felonies and people start losing the rights to vote because of it, like this is dangerous, like I think people who speak about free speech, if they're not talking about these types of, you know, brazen abuses to the First Amendment, then they're not serious, like the First Amendment is something that we are losing, like we're losing the right to protest, more and more we're seeing cities and states implement curfews, we're seeing a crackdown on the First Amendment, and this is going to continue to happen unless we put a stop to it, right? So this is just, you know, another, another brick in the path towards us losing the right to protest, the right to peacefully assemble, which is sacred. And I think that everyone should be outraged, but the fact that we didn't hear much about this law in mainstream media shows that, you know, states are able to do things like this, governors can sign bills like this into law and get away with it, because nobody's paying attention, nobody really cares. They might believe that, oh, well, this isn't them just losing the right to vote if they protest. I mean, they have to do a particular thing to get charged with a felony and because they're felons, then they lose the right to vote, except do you not understand what they're doing? Do you not see the way that they're trying to subvert the Constitution and effectively make it so if you do something that they deem inappropriate, if you protest in a way that they don't like, they can take away your right to vote with some bullshit nonsense excuse like this that we know will be abused. It's just, it's dangerous and it's a bad sign of what's to come if this continues.