If protesters paid for police, would civil rights survive?

Here’s a little imaginative thought experiment: Imagine that Martin Luther King Jr. is in, say, York.

The year is 2017, and the Civil Rights movement is just gaining steam.

African-Americans are opposed by Jim Crow-era rules and regulations. They’re segregated: Separate drinking fountains, separate schools, relegated to the back of the bus. In this imaginary world, it’s basically 1963 in 2017.

Dr. King and his supporters wish to hold public protests of these conditions, but their requests to do so are denied by the government.

They decide to protest anyway, peacefully — an example of civil disobedience of unjust laws, as advocated by Gandhi.

Dr. King and some of his followers are arrested and charged with violating the law. They are thrown in jail (and treated badly).

(Yes, this all actually happened — but in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, and it resulted in Dr. King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”).

But if a law proposed by state Sen. Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, were to be passed and our timetraveling Dr. King were arrested for breaking the law during a protest, he might be on the hook for a huge bill to pay for public safety.

Under Sen. Martin’s bill, anyone who commits a felony or misdemeanor during a protest could be forced to pay for the entire “reasonable costs” of the public safety response to the event.

Imagine the bills authorities could have slapped on Dr. King and his followers for “breaking the law” during these protests.

Rosa Parks might have been left penniless for her “crime.”

If this proposed law were in effect in 1963, we might not have had a Civil Rights movement. African Americans might still be fighting for basic equality in this “land of the free” in 2017.

Sen. Martin’s bill is simply a terrible idea.

He makes the point that large, violent protests cost taxpayers a great deal of money. He says those who break the law and cause the problems should have to pay for the police and other emergency services.

Point taken — and we would certainly never advocate violence.

It didn’t help in York in 1969 when race riots broke out.

It didn’t help here in 2002 when what some have termed the “Battle of York” raged, with idiotic fights between racists and anti-racists.

Peaceful civic action is the way to go.

But as the King example shows, even peaceful protests can result in criminal charges (unjust ones, to be sure — but charges nonetheless). This seems likes an effort to intimidate wouldbe protesters and keep them from exercising their First Amendment rights.

Sen. Martin’s proposal mentions pipeline protesters — specifically the protests of the Dakota Access pipeline that some say cost $22 million for emergency responders.

Pipelines have become controversial in Pennsylvania, too.

In fact, a group of nuns recently built an open air chapel in the path of a proposed pipeline in Lancaster County.

If that doesn’t stop the project, and if the nuns resort to peaceful resistance, could they be charged with crimes and forced to pay for police? How absurd would that be? And how unconstitutional? And speaking of our founding documents, how much might the British have levied upon the Boston Tea Partyers for their criminal protests?

Yes, police response to public protests can be expensive.

But that’s the cost of freedom.

If this proposed law were in effect in 1963, we might not have had a Civil Rights movement. African Americans might still be fighting for basic equality in this “land of the free” in 2017.