This subtle point, that some kinds of political activity, namely, protests, must be held in check for the sake of preventing them from disrupting other kinds of political activity , namely, the national conventions of the Democratic or Republican parties, intentionally or simple-mindedly assumes that there is some Constitutional or otherwise authorized ranking of kinds of political activity by priority. That's the only way one could assume that there are kinds of political activity against which the State is obligated to defend other kinds of political activity. I know of no such ranking. But in any case to assume that the Republican and Democratic Conventions enjoy some kind of legal or Constitutional privilege that protests don't enjoy is flat wrong. The first thing we have to do upon noticing that Elias is giving us a bum steer is to refuse to assume that the Republican National Convention has a superior claim to political legitimacy than anti-RNC protests have.
Law enforcement is eager to establish prior restraint based on the content of political speech.
And the only reason they are refraining from doing so is business considerations. Thus, in the estimation of LA law enforcement and, one assumes, LA city and municipal governance, some kinds of political speech are less Constitutionally-protected than keeping local business owners fat and happy. Second, the allusion to anticipated terrorist violence at the LA Olympics in 1984 is an allusion to an example of propaganda and repression worthy of Orwell's 1984 . It hardly counts as a shining example of respect for dissenting political expression. Third, slyly equating, as Elias does, terrorist bogeymen and civilian protesters is horribly distortive.