| Feb042009 | Wikipedia Wednesday: The 1st Amendment |
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.
Look here, I ain’t no fancy constitutional lawyer. I have zero background in lawyerin’ so all I’m going to do today is some reading comprehension for you idiots that continue to cry wolf. This amendment is forever being simplified as “freedom of speech” but there’s a lot of important words that appear around the phrase.
Walk with me.
Congress shall make no law…
This part means the United States Congress, those senators and House representatives you see on TV that wear suits and talk too much. It does not mean: some stranger, your boss, a website owner, the media or your mother. I could tie you to a chair with extension cords and gag you with a dirty sock but trust me, nowhere in the police report is it going to say I violated your First Amendment rights.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
This part is what spurred this post today. Obama’s proposed stimulus money will not go towards schools that allow religious worship. This is not a violation of the First Amendment. You can worship whomever you want but you won’t be paid to do it. It would only be a violation if the government passed a law that said, “Everyone must attend mass on Sundays” or, “No more gods, we have too many,” or, “Don’t tell people that Satan is awesome.”
Before and after the stimulus package, you will still be able to 1) establish a religion and 2) exercise your religion freely.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…
I covered this already but this means congress can’t make laws to shut you up. That being said, a senator could probably still tell you to shut up. He just can’t make you. He can’t lock you up for having an opposing opinion, he can’t silence you because he doesn’t want to hear what’s being said. But he’s probably free to tell you to shut up.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom… of the press…
This is probably the part of the amendment that’s most difficult for me to grasp. What freedoms does this entail and exactly who are the press? I understand the ideal is prevent government for lying to its people or re-writing history and whatnot. Basically, you want government dissent to always have a mouthpiece; you can’t only give out microphones to those who agree with you. Prevent mass brainwashing and whatnot.
It feels like there’s a lot of room for interpretation here. Thankfully, there’s a Wikipedia article all about Freedom of the press in the United States. It provides this delight Jefferson quote: “No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth.”
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.
Simply: “petition” means to “ask”, “redress” means “fix” and “grievance” means “complaint”. You are allowed to ask the government to fix things that you think are not right. That’s cool. It’s like asking your super to fix things. No guarantee what happens once you ask the government for something but the First Amendment ensures that they will never make a law to stop you from bitching about them. This is important for when you grow old and you will want to do nothing but complain.
That’s all folks. Hope you feel as enlightened as I do. Please tell me if I got something wrong. The whole point of this exercise was to learn something new.
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