Tag Archives: Bill of Rights

Rights And Freedoms — Part II — Freedom Of Religion

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

As I noted in my post of December 2nd, I am doing a brief ‘mini-series’ about ‘rights’ as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and how they are often abused or misinterpreted.  This post is Part II of that series.

1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 15 December 1791

The ‘freedoms’ that are guaranteed to the people of this nation under the U.S. Constitution are often misunderstood, sometimes intentionally, and other times out of genuine confusion.  But I would like to make one thing very clear … a ‘right’ is a right for everyone.  If I give you a chocolate bar and tell you it’s okay to eat it, that doesn’t give you the right to force someone else to eat a chocolate bar.

Specifically today I’m addressing a touchy topic:  freedom of religion.  Let’s start with the facts.  This is what the First Amendment has to say about it …

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

These are known as the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.  Together with the constitutional provision prohibiting religious tests as a qualification for office these clauses promote individual freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Where in this simple sentence does it state or imply that any one religion is the sole or ‘official’ religion of the country?  Where does it say that one person has the right to force another to share their beliefs or values?  It doesn’t.  It doesn’t actually even say that anybody has the right to any religion, only that Congress shall not make laws regarding religion or prohibiting religious practices.  For some, that would be enough.  Ask an atheist living in Iran … they would be thrilled to have such freedom.

Through the years, freedom of religion has been interpreted to mean one thing and another, and in recent years still another.  One of the most significant areas of debate is LGBTQ rights.  Let’s return for a moment to the chocolate bar analogy.  Say Judy is allergic to chocolate and cannot eat it, but her neighbor Bobby loves chocolate and is not allergic.  Now, Judy certainly has a right to steer clear of the Cadbury, just as Bobby has a right to buy it and devour it.  Are you with me so far?  What would you say, though, if Judy tried to make it illegal for anybody on her street to buy or eat chocolate simply because she cannot eat it?  Laughable, yes?

But it isn’t laughable when a person whose religious beliefs are that marriage can only be between a male and a female as identified at birth tries to force their views on an entire nation of 330 million people!  Okay, nobody is going to tell those people they can’t believe that, for it is their right.  However, not everyone shares those beliefs.  Other people who do not belong to person A’s church and do not share their beliefs, have rights too.  Joe and Thom have a right to fall in love and marry by law in most states, yet there are some who would take that right from them because and only because it is not in sync with their own religious beliefs.  I’m trying to be nice here, but that is bigotry, plain and simple.  It is saying that you do not have a right to be different than person A.  It is every bit as wrong as saying that Black people don’t have a right to live in your neighborhood or Jewish people don’t have a right to send their children to the same school your children go to, or women don’t have a right to earn the same pay as men for the same job.

Nowhere in the Constitution or any other government document does it say that one religion takes precedence over another.  You have the right to be you, and I have the right to be me, and Joe has the right to be him, as long as we do no harm to others by exercising our rights.  For Joe and Thom to be in love and marry does no harm to anybody, and yet … and yet millions of people would like to see their marriage declared illegal, would like to take away their rights. 

Religion is a choice, and here in the United States it is a choice that we are fortunate to be able to make freely, for there is no state-sponsored religion, no Sharia law, no religious mandates such as there are in other countries.  We should exercise that freedom as we see fit … each of us as individuals … but we should not attempt to force our views on others, for that is depriving them of their rights.  It’s all a matter of respect.  Live and let live.  Why is that so hard for some to understand?

Rights And Freedoms — Part I — Freedom of Speech

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 15 December 1791

Throughout the centuries, very few limitations have been placed on the First Amendment even as people pushed the envelope using it as cover for everything from child pornography to outright threats of violence.  Let’s make something perfectly clear up front here, since today all I hear is people proclaiming their ‘rights’:  Your freedom, your ‘right’ stops where it crosses the line of another person’s freedom or rights.  Period.

You have a right to exercise your freedom of religion by holding a religious ceremony for whatever purpose you see fit, but you cannot hold it on my lawn.  You have a right to tell me what you think of me, but not to threaten me or my family with bodily harm.  And I have a right to set limits in my own home, such as you do NOT have a right to bring a gun into my home. 

Two of my overseas friends last week, David in the UK and Andrea in Australia, both made essentially the same comment, that the United States has too many of the wrong sort of freedoms.  I didn’t have to think about it long … about 15 seconds, I think … to realize that they are both right and that I fully agree.  Our Constitution gives us a number of rights, but we have abused them, for we seem not to remember that with rights come responsibilities.  You have a right to say what you think, but also a responsibility not to cause harm.  You have a right to worship as you please, but also a responsibility to recognize and honour the fact that others have the same right and may not share your same views.

I was a teen during the Vietnam War years when protesting was almost a career for some, and yet I never saw the same sort of hatred, the incitement for violence, the outright lies that I am seeing in our country today.  Sure, young people were angry in the 1960s that our government was sending our young men – brothers, boyfriends, husbands – to fight a war halfway across the world that we knew could not be won.  But we didn’t threaten to kill.  We knew better than to cross certain lines of decency.

Not long ago, the Republican Party issued an edict of sorts claiming that the seditious attempted coup on January 6th 2021 was “Legitimate Political Discourse”.  My jaw still drops when I hear that.  NO, IT WAS NOT!  Police officers died defending the Capitol and democracy on that day. Property belonging to We the People was damaged, there were threats to the lives of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. And the goal was to overturn the will of the people, to deny our voices, to essentially overturn the United States government and the Constitution. It was not discourse, it was not civil, and it was NOT what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind back in 1787. 

I cannot condone, nor should anyone condone, the use of foul language or threats of bodily harm … that is not ‘freedom of speech’, that is incitement of violence.  When people condemn or threaten those in the LGBTQ+ community, that is NOT freedom of speech … that is robbing someone else of the freedom to live in safety, being who they are.  Again … your freedom STOPS at the point where it infringes on mine or another person’s.  You do NOT have the right to dictate who a person should marry, whether a woman should have a child or not, what religion – if any – a person observes, where they live, or what they believe.

We are a nation of rights and freedoms, but we have historically abused them, never more so than in this, the 21st century.  If we continue to abuse them, we will lose them.  No, that is not hyperbole … at some point, we will lose the freedom to say what’s on our mind if we cannot do so within the confines or decency and respect.  Perhaps James Madison, the chief author of the First Amendment, gave people too much credit for humanity, compassion, and human decency.  Perhaps they did not realize that at some point, destruction and inciting violence would be classified as ‘free speech’, else they might have put some constraints on that ‘right’.  Or, perhaps people then were kinder, more deserving of a nearly unlimited freedom of speech.

We hear a lot these days about individual ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’ but very little about the responsibilities that accompany those freedoms and rights.  Over the course of the next week or two, I plan to do another post or two on other of our rights such as freedom of the press and the 2nd Amendment, the ‘right’ to bear arms.  Please feel free to make suggestions if there are other ‘rights’ you would like to see discussed.

Thoughts On “Freedom Of Speech”

Posted on by under education, Election 2020, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Social commentary

“The First Amendment exists to allow all of our voices to be heard, not to grant one voice the right to drown out all others” — columnist Allison Press

We hear a lot about ‘freedom of speech’ these days.  It seems that everyone has their own idea about what, exactly, constitutes ‘free speech’.  Perhaps, had the Founding Fathers realized how our society would devolve, realized to what depraved lows the human species could sink, they would have been a bit more specific, would have included some limitations and certainly would have made note of the fact that freedom … any and every freedom … is accompanied by responsibility.  But alas, they had just come out from under the heavy thumb of Great Britain and wanted to create a nation that encouraged people to think, to speak freely and open the floor for discussion, for a meeting of the minds that would, ultimately, make this a nation that would truly be “of the people, by the people, and for the people” as Lincoln would quote some 76 years later.

Freedom of speech was included in the 1st Amendment in order to ensure that people could have a voice, could be free to express ideas and share information without fear of government censorship.  Fast forward from the writing of the Constitution to present … the year 2022.  Today, people claim free speech gives them the right to put lives in danger by refusing to wear a mask or be vaccinated against a deadly virus that has already taken the lives of over 1 million people in this nation alone.  They insist that free speech gives them the right to spread lies that lead to violence and sometimes death.  Somehow, my friends, I don’t think this is what the framers of the Constitution intended when they said …

“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.”

And yet today, a relatively small group of religious fanatics would impose their will on the rest of this nation, would see their own religious doctrine taught in schools … schools attended by children of all and no religions.  Those 45 words of the 1st Amendment have been so widely misinterpreted and expanded that people like James Madison, the chief author of the Bill of Rights that contains the 1st Amendment, would be horrified if he could see how his words have been twisted and skewed.

Out of necessity, some limitations on free speech have been quantified over the past 235 years:

  • Obscene material such as child pornography
  • Plagiarism of copyrighted material
  • Defamation (libel and slander)
  • True threats

But are those enough?  I want to ask you something … would we even need those few restrictions on free speech if everyone took seriously their responsibilities?

It is common sense … COMMON SENSE … that we should not terrorize children, should not abuse them in any way, certainly not sexually.  There could be no child pornography if all people had a conscience, if they stood by their responsibilities and respected the rights of children to simply enjoy those relatively few days of innocent childhood.  But NOOOOOO … some perverted individuals think it’s their ‘right’ to not only sexually abuse children, but then to take pictures and video of the act(s) and publish them!  What is WRONG with these people???  What is WRONG with the people who would pay money to buy this crap?

What people seem to forget, or not care about, is that words have consequences.  If you yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, the resulting mass exodus is likely to result in people being trampled and some will likely die.  And so, there is a law against doing so, since some people apparently don’t have enough sense of responsibility to think first.  In the same manner, on January 6, 2021, a number of people including the twice-impeached former president uttered words to the effect of “FIRE!” … words that stirred the masses to action, caused them to break & enter the U.S. Capitol, vandalize the building and contents, create murder & mayhem, and terrorize our lawmakers as they attempted to overthrow the government.  Inciting a riot, inciting a violent coup attempt, is not protected free speech … nor should it ever be.

Whatever happened to responsibility?  When did the people of this nation decide it is acceptable or forgivable to lie, cheat and steal?  I think about that line in that is often misattributed to the Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm.”  Shouldn’t that be the maxim by which humans measure their behaviour?  We should indeed be able to speak, to offer our opinions, but not if it leads to harm, not if it creates violence.  When we fail to accept and uphold the responsibility that accompanies any freedom, then we are certain to ultimately lose that freedom.  The same is true of free speech … if you use it for harm, to incite violence, to perpetuate a lie, then you will not only lose your own right to speak freely, but you will cost all of us that right.

Freedom Of Speech Run Amok

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Recently, a father of four named Jared Schmeck was on a live televised phone call with the President and First Lady, on a Christmas Eve event supposedly tracking Santa Claus’ progress, (a tradition designed to give children and their families joy in anticipation of the day ahead). After President Biden asked what Schmeck’s children were looking forward to and sweetly wishing him and his family a Merry Christmas, the man inexplicably punctuated his call with “Let’s Go Brandon.”

Jared Schmeck (l); President and First Lady Biden (r)

For those who have heard of the chant/hashtag ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ but may not be aware of its origin or meaning …

The hashtag was born after a sports reporter misheard a racing crowd chanting “F*ck Joe Biden” while interviewing the winning driver named Brandon Brown, thinking they were cheering him on.  It is basically giving a middle finger to President Biden.

Now, ol’ Jared Schmeck was heard complaining to The Oregonian that he’s being unfairly criticized because people have slammed his joke. “Now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech.”  No, sweet cheeks, you are not being attacked, however if you believe you have the ‘right’ to speak to the President in such a manner, then surely you must acknowledge that the rest of us have a right to criticize your judgment, your foul language, your lack of mental acuity, and for being a grade-A jerk.

Beau of the Fifth Column expresses it well …

I wonder, if the Founding Fathers had realized how ignorant and cruel the people of this nation would become over the centuries, might they have put a few constraints on some of the ‘rights’ included in the Bill of Rights, or Amendments #1-10?  Seems to me we need some, since people are obviously incapable of using their brains, of using a bit of common sense, of showing respect.

Take, for example, this voicemail that was left on U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell’s voicemail …

Is this really how people want to be remembered, by the number of times they can invoke the F-bomb against a fellow human being?  Is this who we are?  More and more it seems so, for until the past ten years or so, I never knew how cruel, disrespectful and downright ignorant so many of the people who call themselves “Americans” could be.  Needless to say, I am deeply ashamed of a large portion of this nation.  Freedom of speech has run amok in a way that would horrify the men who wrote the Bill of Rights in 1791.  ‘Americans’ need to learn to engage the brain before opening the mouth, and there ought to be a price when they intentionally fail to do so.

The Solution Is NOT Guns!

Posted on by under Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

Back in 1787, the Founding Fathers drafted a brilliant document that would become known as the Constitution of the United States.  Unfortunately, they also made some mistakes, one that has cost hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lives, unnecessarily.  You see, the nation was a fledgling, only a few years past gaining their independence from England after a bloody war that they damn near lost, so the framers of the document were leery that a foreign power might see the nation as vulnerable and try to take it while it was still learning to stand on its own.  So, after ratifying the original document, they added a “Bill of Rights”, the 2nd Amendment of which gave citizens the “right to bear arms”.  This, my friends, was a lethal mistake, one that every one of us have paid for in one way or another.

Now, the Founders figured the best way to protect the nation from foreign interference was to maintain a militia … everyday men … farmers, shopkeepers, etc., who could grab their rifle or musket and march off to defend and protect the nation if the need arose.  Thus they wrote the Second Amendment:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That’s it, folks, the entire text, all 27 words of it.  Sadly, though, the Founders only familiarity with ‘arms’ were muskets and such … never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined AR-15s and AK-47s, weapons that can mow down hundreds of people in less time than it took me to write this sentence.  And because of that lack of foresight, the U.S. Supreme Court has been trying ever since to define just what ‘arms’ are to be protected and to what extent.

Unfortunately, long ago common sense flew out the door of the Supreme Court and Congress when the word ‘gun’ is mentioned, and the elements that have determined the ‘law’, such as it is, are those with a vested interest in the weapons industry.  Public safety is entirely overlooked in the debate over guns.  The only consideration is … $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  I won’t bore you with the lengthy list of cases that have first teetered, then tottered, back and forth, regarding what, if any, regulations should be placed on who can own a gun, how many, what type, etc., but suffice it to say that the U.S. is the only nation on the globe where a person’s right to own a gun is more protected than his right to drive a car.

And as a result …

One week ago yesterday, on May 9th, a sunny afternoon in the small town of Griffin, Georgia, a 12-year-old boy was killed … shot dead by his 5-year-old brother who found a gun that had been tossed into the bushes the day before by three men eluding the police during a chase.  According to neighbor Tom Whitehead …

“The little one found a gun, had to be right here… somewhere in these bushes he walked over here, found a gun. Turns around. Thinks he’s playing, says ‘bang bang’. It was loaded and killed him.  Think about that mother. The next day, Mother’s Day, and one boy is dead by the hand of his younger brother.”

And as a result …

The total number of deaths by gun violence in the U.S. as of May 16th is 14,815 … a number that is sure to have already increased by the time you read this.  84 of that number were children under the age of 11, and 322 teens under the age of 18 are also included in the number. gun-violence-5-2020

And as a result …

In March 2017, a mother and her two-year-old toddler were sitting on the bed, while the nine-year-old was sitting on the floor, playing a video game.  The mother had a loaded gun in her hand, but couldn’t find her holster, so she placed the gun (loaded with a round chambered) on the bed next to the two-year-old while she got up to look for her holster.  The two-year-old then picked up the gun, pulled the trigger, shot and killed his nine-year-old brother.  The mother had, in the past, allowed the toddler to pull the trigger on the gun when it was unloaded.

I could go on, but you get the picture … this is happening every day in the United States. Look at the chart above … already this year, not even five months into the year, we are on track to tie or beat previous years.

The gun culture in the U.S. is beyond crazy.  This is not in any way, shape, or form what James Madison meant in 1791 when he proposed the Second Amendment as a way to empower state militias.  Today, there are no state militias.  None.  There are juveniles in grown men’s bodies who believe that they must own a firearm in order to feel like a ‘man’, but these men do not belong to militias and they are doing not one damn thing to keep this country safe, but instead are making it the most dangerous nation in the industrialized world.  People in other nations are aghast … “What are you Americans thinking???”, they ask.  What are we thinking, indeed?

The wealthy arms manufacturers fund the National Rifle Association who in turn *buys our legislators, thereby ensuring that guns will continue to be a part of what they call “The American Way of Life”.  What a joke!  “The American Way of Death” would be more apt.  And thus it happened that in March, while people were beginning to die by the thousands from the coronavirus, it was the single biggest month for gun sales.  WHY???  WTF are people thinking?  In April, gun lobbyists convinced the federal government to list gun shops as “essential services” so that while people in some states could not purchase a bottle of wine, or a pack of toilet paper, they could go out and buy a gun.  Five states’ governors had the cojones to order gun shops closed anyway, but April’s total was still the fourth highest ever. In three of the five states where gun stores were supposed to be closed, the numbers were higher than they were in April of 2019.

The United States is facing more problems of a greater magnitude today than since the end of World War II, the coronavirus pandemic obviously being at the top of the immediate list.  I would rank numbers two and three as racism and gun violence … problems that far outweigh even the sinking economy.  And yet, Donald Trump wastes every waking minute ranting, calling out his imagined enemies, denigrating the press, dreaming up conspiracy theories, and patting himself on the back for successes that exist only in his own mind.  We’re in trouble, people, and guns are not going to solve the problem, for they ARE a big part of the problem.

*  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken NRA donations of $1,267,139 during his congressional career, but the leader of the pack is Mitt Romney, who has taken $13,647,676 during his time in Congress.  Interestingly, the 2nd highest in NRA donations is Senator Richard Burr, who is currently under investigation for insider trading violations.  Senator Burr has collected a handy $6,987,380 in his twenty-five years in Congress.  Source:  Brady United Organization