First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
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.
Every school age child in the United States eventually learns about our system of government. They are taught about the Revolutionary war for Independence. They are taught about the men and women who sacrificed, and fought to create our country. They are taught to revere the principles upon which our country proclaims to the world that we are America, the land of the free, a land of shining democracy,an example, they are taught, for the rest of the world to emulate.
Yet we are a nation formed out of rebellion. The men and women who fought to establish our country were criminals in the eyes of the English. When they drafted the Constitution of the United States they started with this preamble:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, Insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The preamble sets out the goals for the newly established country. These are communal goals. The First Amendment as we know it (ratified in 1790) is more reflective of individual rights, the rights so recently fought for by our emerging nation and all of the men that helped to draft our constitution. There would inevitably be conflict between the ideals.
I wonder if they could have possibly known that the document they drafted would still be used over two hundred years later, and the question of what the amendment meant would still be debated, challenged and reinterpreted within the courts.
I was born in 1960. I grew up in a tiny little town on the Canadian border. My mother was an artist and my father was a writer. We didn’t have a television though our home was always full of books and newspapers and lots of gatherings with friends and family. My grandfather Julian, was a union organizer though he was the gentlest of men. Eleanor and Teddy Roosevelt were revered in my family and being called a “Yellow Dog Democrat” probably wouldn’t have offended anyone. Vietnam was going on, you couldn’t open a book, listen to the radio, or not be aware of my grandmothers weeping when my cousin Danny was drafted. I remember the sheriff coming to our house with two men from the FBI because my father in a drunken rage tried to call the president at the Whitehouse, to tell him he was a “war mongering son of a bitch.” I can’t remember the presidents name, but I remember my mothers face as she tried to hide her fear. I remember when the Monahan boys came home from Viet Nam with films to document what they had experienced as medics and to urge our community to help stop this war. I remember the first time I heard Dr. Martin Luther Kings speech “I had a dream” was when it was broadcast on the news and they had just announced his assassination. I was to young to know what any of that meant. The only “King” I knew were the ones in fairy tales. The only time I had ever heard a of a “nigger” was when we bought the black licorice candy “nigger babes” at Ericksons Grocery, five for a penny.
Words have power. Even a child can understand that. They can soothe you to sleep with a bed time story, whisper secrets of silent dreams, or hurt you when carelessly used.
Nations have been born and nations have fallen because of the power of words. That is why we must vehemently defend and protect the First Amendment. It is the basis for which our power as a nation comes.
Our country has gone through tremendous changes in the last two hundred years. Yet the simple words of our First Amendment are flexible enough to serve as a guiding principle of our nation, our community. Our society can and does change. The First Amendment allows us to be able to change without destroying the core values our country has been founded on.
I believe in the preferred position balancing theory of the First Amendment. This means that governmental action that limits free speech and free press in order to protect other interests is usually unconstitutional. This way of looking at the First Amendment means that the government has to bear the burden of proof in any legal challenges to censorship. The government has to be able to prove to the court that it’s censorship is justified and not a violation of the First Amendment.
Our freedom though is a fragile thing. It can be destroyed by apathy, It can be destroyed by ignorance, it can be destroyed by fear and it can be destroyed by those we entrust to protect it.
I have grown up in some of the most politically and socially tumultuous times our country has had in its modern history.
I have seen that evil does indeed grow in the dark, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have seen the Berlin Wall come down, a nation fire upon it’s own students, dictators fall, and dictators rise to power. I have seen schools integrated, women empowered, wars fought and some wars won.
There is a new challenge for our country now, it is our newest war. On September 11, 2001 our country was attacked by terrorists, they hurt us but didn’t destroy us. That can only be done by our own hand.
The men who hijacked those planes that fateful morning did so with the blessings of their government. In a country where freedom of speech was not allowed, where freedom of expression was not tolerated, where the voice of the people was not heard, where criticism of the government meant death.
Let us remember just what the First Amendment means to us.
