Forum Post: Peaceable Protest

OK. I'm not trying to start an argument here. I've been following the protests in NY and across the country for a few weeks and I keep seeing people refer to their right to 'peacefully assemble' when in actuality the Constitution gives us the right to 'peaceably assemble'. It may not seem like a big deal but those two words have, if not explicitly diiferent meanings, surely at least entirely different connotations. A cool breezy summer night is peaceful. Peaceable is an inclination to avoid conflict. In its legal sense, peace is not a state of transcendent ease- it is the proper state of order. To enable that order is peaceable. So, from a legal perspective, blocking traffic, sitting on the bridge, shouting through a megaphone, or otherwise unfairly burdening fellow citizens simply isn't peaceable. Hey, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a little civil disobedience(show those jackboots who's boss), just that I don't think its doing anybody any good to have youtube clogged with protesters shouting the wrong thing at the top of their lungs.