The First Amendment

Bill of Rights
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

So, I am in the car with my BFF (best friend forever) and we are on our way to her middle son's first football game of the season. As we turn the corner to get into the parking lot, we realize there is some kind of protest going on. The protesters are brandishing yellow ribbons, parade-sized versions of Old Glory, and signs bemoaning our president and the new health care plan. They even have a sound system amplifying patriot melodies. Whatever group this is, they have a statement, and they want to be heard.


So, bff huffs and gets disgruntled about them being in her way. Understand that she is 110% a football mom (and that topic is for another post) and these people are in the way of her getting to THE GAME! Her 7 y/o daughter asks what those people are doing. Again, bff huffs, and makes some snarky comment about them being stupid and wanting to spread their stupidness or something to that effect. At this, I had to interject and explain to her daughter that those people were exersizing their first amendment rights. To which bff replies, "Listen, my children are entitled to my opinion, and my opinion only."

Now, under any other circumstances, I would have jumped at the opportunity to jump on my soap box and let her have it with both barrels. Instead I laughed it off, because I know her well enough to know that even though she encourages her children to share her political views, I also know that she is the kind of person that would never prevent her children from developing their own political views. But she isn't alone in her agitation of people exersizing their rights to peacable assembly and free speech.

The current topic of discussion in my English Comp class is "Do you think there is some language that is so patently offensive that it should be banned from public discourse despite our Fisrt Amendment guarantee of free speech?" We read an article today about how Mob Rule has taken over liberal college campuses across the nation, allowing certain political groups to harass and even cause to cancel certain invited speakers if the group doesn't agree with the point of view of the speaker.

What will happen to us as a people when only the politically correct views are allowed to be expressed? Or when only those ideals that are popularly held are allowed to be expressed? Don't forget, slavery and nazism were popular views during their respective times in history. This is not a good direction to be going in. The irony is, that the campuses were this is running rampant have always been known as liberal institutions, once the basteons of open discource on controversial ideas and topics.

This topic hits right to the core of who I am and what I have always tried to stand for. I'm not going to get into it all right now. I have to save some for class. Our first writing assignment is going to be based on this topic. I'll post the finished product here. Come back in a few weeks and check it out.

Thanks for listening...