As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday this year, you can bet you’ll hear more about the fateful day in 1773 when a group of liberty-loving Charlestonians staged America’s first tea party, gathering at the Exchange Building on East Bay Street to protest Britain’s Tea Act.
What you’re less likely to hear? That the very same protest today would likely get you tossed in the clink under the city’s performatively tough — and amusingly Orwellian — “First Amendment” ordinance.
That’s the one that says any protest involving 25 or more people requires a Charleston city government permission slip. It essentially gives the Charleston Police Department effective control over the time, place and manner of free speech and free assembly throughout the city of Charleston. And that’s wrong and un-American…