Revisiting the First Amendment

The First Amendment is often inconvenient.  But that is beside the point.  Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
            Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy

Have you ever read the Bill of Rights?  These are the first ten amendments to the Constitution that were intended to mollify the Anti-Federalists who opposed a government with a stronger federal authority.  It is an amazing experience to read what our Founding Fathers considered important and a necessity to include in our founding document.  Almost as amazing as what is said is what is not enumerated within the Constitution.  I’ve written on the topic of free speech in the past but never have the times called for an explanation of what was not said in the First Amendment. 

Recently, in the National Review, editorialist Jim Geraghty reminded readers of the first time some folks around the world threw their hands up in outrage over “blasphemous” language in the form of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.  He posted within his article a video of a Saturday Night Live skit where Phil Hartman and Glenn Close play Barnes and Noble employees fighting off an angry mob with machine guns and evasive maneuvers to continue selling books.  A “dying” Hartman declared that perhaps they should only sale Muslim literature or have “Ayatollah birthday sales.”  Among the laughs and the wincing, it occurs to the viewer that there was a time where we answered this kind of outrage with a reaffirmation of our belief in freedom of speech or expression. 

However, the intended limitation to freedom of speech is not limited to a handful of extremists.  Some Americans have wondered about the protection of speech when it comes to a group of horrid people, members of a “church” out of Topeka, Kansas who protest the funerals of soldiers with the most despicable slogans aimed at the military and homosexuals.  In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the racist rant of a KKK leader was protected because it was not designed to call for immediate violence.  In 1995, the Court ruled that the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council were not required to allow the Irish American Gay Group of Boston to march with them in a private parade because doing so would violated the veterans’ freedom of speech by forcing them to espouse something with which they disagreed.  In 1989, the Court ruled that a Texan named Gregory Johnson was within his constitutional rights to burn the American flag.  Two decades earlier, the Court protected students protesting the Viet Nam War with a black arm band in school. 

Throughout our history, we’ve struggled with the consequences of our national convictions and we’ve struggled to live up to the best intentions of our forefathers.  We’ve been tasked with, as Americans, to accept the notion that freedom of speech must apply to those things we don’t like more than anything else.  Indeed, we have no such freedom if it only applies to that speech we find acceptable.  When we stand against someone like the Phelps family in Topeka, we worry about the soldiers, their families and gay men and women who serve as a foil for twisted minds and blackened hearts.  Therefore, we say to ourselves, there must be something that we can do to prevent such speech.  We see violence throughout the world over movies or cartoons and we worry about the American families who have lost loved ones or the Muslim families who huddle in the dark, hoping for the light of tolerance and rationality – for themselves and the ignorance of others who seek to besmirch them.

Roman senator and historian Tacitus said, “The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.”  From the past, comes a warning.  We, as a nation, must have the security in our own beliefs and our own ideas to not only tolerate the repugnant but to explain our ideas in the spirit it was intended and not shrink from them.  When some might say, “this should not be allowed,” we must make the case that a freedom for our friends only is no freedom at all.  The more conditions we place on such an inalienable right, the more the government legislates and decides for us what is and is not acceptable.  We will continue to surrender our rights until one day, no one may speak and the tyranny that Americans have feared since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton will ultimately destroy us. 

 

The Law and the Munchies

Colorado is the newest state to consider the notion of legalized marijuana.  Oregon and Washington, the last bulwark of old hippies and new wannabes, are also set to vote on legalization.  Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan suggested that policy with regards to pot should be a state decision.  California has been on personal crusade to legalize the drug in one form or another, though the federal government and the Supreme Court has stood in its way.  It is a popular cause for the Libertarians who feel that any substance that does not harm others should be left alone by Washington.  However, legalizing a problem does not erase the problem.

In a recent Rasmussen poll, 56% favor marijuana joining such drugs as alcohol and cigarettes and being legal and regulated.  Advocates for the measure suggest that the money spent to combat it and the crowded jails, not to mention the seemingly relentless battle the U.S. must fight to address the drug, are just some of the reasons for their call for legalization.  The notion of marijuana as a “victimless” crime, emphasizing the ill effects of the drug as nominal, is echoed throughout.  Furthermore, they mock and ridicule attempts and the philosophy behind the “war on drugs,” first popularized under the Reagan administration. 

However, according to a recent editorial in the Christian Science Monitor, marijuana use in the United States has dropped 50% since the 1980s.  It would seem the efforts are more productive than some would characterize.  Any high school teacher can debate against the assertion that marijuana has little to no effect on the user.  As one joked, the worst thing that pot does to a person is to condition them to accept boredom and wallow in it.  That alone and the intellectual void it leaves in its wake is enough to keep this drug on the permanent “do-not-legalize” list. 

Some are quick to point out that tobacco and alcohol are just as bad and therefore, we should be more open with marijuana use.  One cannot compare the latter to the former.  For alcohol and tobacco, that horse left the barn a long time ago and there is little to no point discussing or bemoaning that they are legal.  The fact that they are legal is not a reason why marijuana should follow suit. 

Lastly, there is something about the importance of the need of a standard.  The search for more money in the form of taxation and regulation of a possible legitimate marijuana trade is a shallow, rather cynical argument on the legalization of a drug that has hurt many people since its explosion in use in the 1960s and 1970s.  The fight has been tough to reduce the usage and those efforts have paid off.  There should also be some consideration as to the message sent by an approving nod in the Pacific Northwest to marijuana’s legalization.  Imagine the battle that parents fight on a regular basis to explain to their kids why they fear for them under the effects of pot, only to have the government say it is not that big of a deal.   

So that some may live as they want, indulging immoderately in a substance that has no positive aftereffects, we as a culture struggle with explaining to our students and children that the anti-drug message is still valid and that consequences are still potentially damaging.  I don’t need the government working with me but sure don’t expect it to work against me.  John Cardinal O’Connor, the late archbishop in New York City, mentioned it was not the responsibility of the church to succumb to the sins of the congregation.  It was the congregation’s job to rise to the standards of the church.  We are a better society than one who would surrender the ghost and the argument against drugs.  The impact that legalization efforts would have on society could be devastating and should be avoided.

Many Faces and Many Challenges

For moderate and modern Muslims, it must be a tiring thing to watch, once more, as clerics stoke highly impressionable and easily angered radicals to rise up and destroy and kill over something as insignificant as a low-budget movie that, were it not for the violence, no one would have heard of or thought much about.  Yet, we see the hostility from various countries around the world.  Worse, we see governments, namely Egypt, who provides the most ineffectual of rebukes on the riots and attacks on foreign embassies.  It is with Egypt that the U.S. is most concern but the crisis is twofold – religious and political. 

From a religious point of view, where do the renewed attacks, protests and riots leave Islam?  I don’t suspect that Muslims do or should care of how they are perceived outside their mosques and homes but it must have occurred to some regarding the level of insecurity in faith the actions of a few represent.  In Islam’s early days, the religion was a vibrant and progressive faith whose focus on education and exploration, of the world and of ideas.  Indeed, the Muslims were responsible for the preservation of Greek and Roman knowledge and philosophies.  However, as the faith grew and the empires it counseled grew larger and more suspicious, Muslim clerics forbade outside or new ideas that could not be validated by the Qur’an.  In doing so, the Muslims turned their backs on their own greatness and turned inwards, fearful of those from without who sought to pollute their faith.  Today, if Islam is characterized by anything, it is those whose anti-modernity pervert the faith and its tenets.  Meanwhile, Muslims who do not share such sentiments are overshadowed, outshouted and ignored. 

Politically, this can only worsen relations between the Arab nations and the West.  The United States has supported, albeit weakly, the movements that have sought a greater voice throughout the Middle East.  However, as has been mentioned before, the Arab Spring has become more a hopeful description rather than an accurate one.  Indeed, some of the same corrupt powers are being wielded by new faces that previously represented the voices of the oppressed.  Though the U.S. did not do as much as many would have preferred, the actions of rioters are mystifying given that which the Americans have done.  To Americans, the blame we “share” for the making of this film is telling in two ways.  To citizens where the government approves or disapproves of any form of expression, there is a lack of understanding of how things work in a free society, where most have little knowledge of such a film.  Second, the clerics and leaders whipping people into a frenzy couldn’t care less about Mohammad or his teachings; the film is simply an excuse to strike against those they hate.

Protestors destroyed our embassies and killed our representatives.  Meanwhile, what does the U.S. do?  The general consensus is that Libya has shown more stability and more outrage to the actions of a few than seen elsewhere.  In Egypt, we give nearly $2b in foreign aid and President Obama has extended his greatest amount of support to President Morsi and recognition of the elected government.  The lack of support and weakness of the response to the rioters suggest that the current Egyptian government will prove trouble for the Americans.  Perhaps, our displeasure with the Egyptian response should culminate in a withdrawal of some or all foreign aid and a pulling back of our support of the government.  Egypt’s actions deserve no less.  Meanwhile, the unrest throughout the region needs to be countered by those Muslims with a greater world view.  If not, Islam will be relegated to the extremists and the worst of stereotypes.  We are already moving towards that.

The Road Not Taken

One of the most well-known and oft-quoted poems is Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. Typically, the poem is interpreted as an ode to the individual, the search for independence.  Over the Labor Day weekend, my wife and I traveled through our state, staying far away from the interstates and upon old country roads that pierce near-forgotten towns.  As we made our trip, it occurred to me that, perhaps, the poet meant something else.  Perhaps, we are not to seek the new but the old and forgotten.   

The interstate system, the brainchild of the Eisenhower administration in the mid-1950s, was designed to send our population more quickly and more predictably through our country.  In the process, our society has mirrored what the interstates have become.  In some ways, we have become a collection of homogenized businesses and housing developments that do not speak to our uniqueness.  Indeed, we have become the road most traveled.  Over the decades, smaller towns have declined, cut off from the new commercial thoroughfares.  These towns have watched their once popular and thriving downtown areas slowly sink with shuttered and boarded up store fronts.  Some of these towns have found ways to revitalize, whether it is to host artist galleries, antique shops or tourist ventures.  Old towns have been able to turn their old buildings and institutions into attractions. Visitors are not flocking but they are coming.

As great as these old towns are, with their quirky shops and tasty, locally-owned restaurants, what I took the most pleasure from was the drive along the timeworn roads that were once the highways of their regions.  I love watching the rolling plains of the countryside, as farmers till the soil or horses roam and graze.  If the interstates are flanked with chain fast food spots and big box stores manned by ambivalent workers, the back roads have eccentric business where enthusiastic, colorful vendors sell everything from firecrackers, to animal lawn art to abandoned cars-turned amusement parks.  One drives through territory that appears unchanged since settlers first visited.  It is an amazing experience. 

As I drove, much slower than I normally do, along these deep-rooted roads, my mind goes back to the poem of the road not taken.  These roads hold the true nature of America and some of the older values of my country.  I consider the fact that people who are being overtaken by a faster car will merge onto the shoulder and allow the person to pass.  This is not seen often on the interstate where some drivers take it as a personal affront.  I consider the waving to oncoming drivers and people working or relaxing on their front lawns.  The value and the assumption of friendliness is what people expect in these more rural regions. 

My wife and I considered whether we could live in some of these small towns and as a teacher, I often wonder if I could adjust easily to a small-town high school.  We are so use to the multicultural and varied experiences (food, entertainment and otherwise) that is characteristic of our little urban area.  We enjoy these variations and would certainly have to alter our expectations.  Yet, I wonder if it would serve a greater good in the long run.  Sometimes, when I make my anti-technology rants or speak of the allure of the smaller town or rural area, I worry my wife thinks she is married to someone who will, eventually, try to live on an isolated farm in Montana, way off the grid.  I don’t think I’m that severe but the idea is appealing.  I seek that road not taken and perhaps, it is about a return to what we’ve lost.