Keller @ Large: Making A Joke Of The First Amendment

BOSTON (CBS) - Now that the dust has settled on Saturday's events down at the Common, thankfully with no serious injuries that I know of, we can start to take stock of what really happened.

It doesn't surprise me that my suggestion of last week – that the community isolate and repudiate the protagonists by completely boycotting their pitiful "rally" – was ignored.

As we saw at the massive Women's March against Trump last winter and again on Saturday, there are many thousands of people in our community willing to show up and protest peacefully, and that's a good thing.

It's also not surprising that the crowd included a few hundred creepy wanna-be anarchists and others looking for trouble, who found it by roughing up a few Trump supporters and pointlessly confronting the cops.

If they managed to catch any of the creeps who allegedly threw bodily waste at the police, I call on the district court judges to come up with creative punishment.

But the whole affair left me with a question: why did the City of Boston issue a permit for this travesty at all?

Given the size of the counter-protesting crowd, I can understand keeping them well away from the fringe rally.

But barring the media – not even a pool camera was allowed – effectively shut down any public access to the speeches.

That wasn't necessary to protect public safety.

It deprived the public of a good chance to hear how little these folks had to offer.

And it made a joke of the First Amendment just when it needs to be taken more seriously than ever.