You Want to Make America Great Again? Start by Making America Free Again
John W. Whitehead
If the freedom of speech be taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”— George Washington
Living in a representative republic means that each
person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right,
whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing
clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign.
That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about.
Yet through a series of carefully crafted legislative
steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials
have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with
little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government
officials.
In the process, government officials have succeeded
in insulating themselves from their constituents, making it increasingly
difficult for average Americans to make themselves seen or heard by
those who most need to hear what “we the people” have to say.
Indeed, President Trump—always keen to exercise his free
speech rights to sound off freely on any topic that strikes his
fancy—has not been as eager to protect the First Amendment rights of his
fellow citizens to speak freely, assemble, protest and petition one’s
government officials for a redress of grievances.
Not that long ago, in fact, Trump suggested that the act of protesting should be illegal.
The president has also suggested demonstrators should lose their jobs or be met with violence for speaking out.
Mind you, this is the man who took an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Perhaps someone should have made sure Trump had actually read the Constitution first.
Most recently, the Trump Administration proposed rules that would crack down on protests in front of the White House and on the National Mall.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The
rules would restrict gatherings that now take place on a 25-foot-wide
sidewalk in front of the White House to just a 5-foot sliver, severely
limiting crowds. The NPS [National Park Service] also threatens to hit political protesters on the National Mall with large security and cleanup fees that
historically have been waived for such gatherings, and it wants to make
it easier to reject a spontaneous protest of the type that might occur,
say, if Trump fires special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Imagine if the hundreds of thousands of participants
in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated
with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln
Memorial, had been forced into free speech zones or required to pay for
the “privilege” of protest.
There likely would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act.
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/10.18/freeagain.html
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