Joe Redner, as we know, has a way of making the news. Typically it’s for losing races for public office or abusing the First Amendment with strip-club issues.
But let’s hear it for Redner’s activism on behalf of Occupy Tampa. He’s letting OT use a parcel of land, Voices of Freedom Park, that he owns in West Tampa. He’s on the right side of the First Amendment–not just the legal side–by enabling OT, a motivated, legitimate protest in the free speech tradition.
Protest sites are inherently dicey. Whatever the cause, including fury over Wall Street chicanery, ire over special-interest-linked legislators and outrage at life’s inequities, conflict with public-space ordinances and local police is an ever-present possibility. Not all idealists and authority figures play by the spirit of the law. No, Tampa isn’t New York or Oakland, but trespass scenarios and frazzled nerves come with the territory the longer a protest goes.
Thanks to Redner, the protesters, who have kept a token presence in downtown’s Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, have moved tents and “general assembly” rallies to the West Main Street venue. Redner also donated a portable toilet. His only condition to protesters: keep it clean and keep in mind you’re in somebody’s neighborhood.
It makes good, democratic sense. There are rights–and there are responsibilities.