Illustration By Arnie Bermudez

I came across an interesting piece while browsing the news the other day. Apparently the next G8 Summit is going to be in Sea Island, Ga., a coastal community about 80 miles south of Savannah. As you probably know, the G8 Summit usually draws huge crowds of protesters. Sometimes these people are responsible adults who go about their business in a respectful manner. But more often than not, these crowds turn into huge mobs of childish rioters.

In response to the imminent threat to their community, residents of the Georgia coast are preparing themselves and, of course, the would-be rioters are crying foul. It seems there are communities in the area, Savannah being one of them, that charge groups $1.50 per person for event permits. Keep in mind that this isn't a protest permit - it's an event permit. Anyone who wants to hold any public event, be it a protest or a wedding, has to get one.

Protesters claim this fee is discriminatory and makes it too expensive to hold large rallies. I have trouble seeing how a fee that is applied to everyone would be discriminatory. Plus, if you're holding a larger-than-usual event, shouldn't you have a larger funding source?

In addition, this policy has been on the books for quite a while. It's not just something the city came up with to counter this event.

Tim Belshe Columnist

Even if a city created this fee just for this event, can anyone really blame it? It's been well-demonstrated in recent years that protests for global trade summits are almost always destructive. Just five years ago, there were massive protests in Seattle, which turned into riots. More recently, there was a similar incident in Cancun, Mexico. Can anyone really fault the citizens of Georgia for trying to protect their homes?

I'm sure there's some left-wing radical out there reading this and saying to himself, "That's absurd! We have a right to free speech and a right to assembly. The protesters have every right to be there."

If it were as simple as free speech and peaceful assembly, there wouldn't be a problem here. Most people don't mind someone standing on the side of the road holding a sign. Most people will even tolerate the disruption to daily life that will occur when roads are closed by the mobs of people standing around. But people should not be expected to tolerate the rampant destruction of their cities that will occur as a result of theseprotests. Peaceful assembly is notthe problem here - destructive assembly is.

The citizens of Georgia have every right to believe the visiting protesters will not behave as respectful guests but rather as violent rioters, which has happened over and over in the past. As one member of the Savannah Chamber of Commerce put it, "It's kind of like preparing for a hurricane. We are in a hurricane community. If it develops, you get ready. If it comes ashore, you know what to do."

One protest organizer had this to say about the city's plans regarding the protests: "If there's no organized activities, what's going to happen is you're going to have thousands of people milling through this antique city, and things can get broken and things can be set afire."

There's something about this quote that I don't understand: If these people behave like responsible adults, as anyone in public should be expected to, how would things get broken? For that matter, how would things get set on fire? Last time I was out, I didn't notice responsible people starting fires for no apparent reason.

This is a perfect illustration of the problem with protesters. They are rarely out to effect a real solution, and they rarely act in a manner that anyone would describe as "responsible." More often than not, they are simply around to cause problems and make noise. They think by getting a large mob together at an important event, they'll get their picture in the paper. Somehow, they think that's all they need to do to make things better. The fact is, public protests like this rarely have any good repercussions.

Good luck, Sea Island.

Tim Belshe strongly discourages any news media from publicizing the protests that will occur at the G8 Summit. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu