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. 

Conventional Fun and Focus

Man is, by nature, a political animal.
            Aristotle, Politics       

Over this past week, we have been treated (or for some, subjected) to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.  Next week, the Democrats will meet in the great town of Charlotte, North Carolina.  For a political junkie and a government teacher such as myself, I find these acts of pageantry quite fascinating and usually am suckered in every time, hanging on every speech and subplot.  What many might not know is that the current manifestation of the nominating convention is a recent development.  However, the theatrical nature of the conventions has been a constant and a source of their draw. 

In the 19^th-century, American politics were radically different than the spectacles broadcast every four summers.  There were no primaries prior to the Progressive Movement of the first two decades of the next century.  Therefore, the battle for a party’s nomination was a fight, sometimes literally, on the convention floor.  In 1880, the Republicans were mired in a battle that pitted James Garfield from Ohio, an advocate for civil service reform and Roscoe Conklin of New York, a staunch patronage promoter.  Convention battles have also been the proving ground of splinter parties, such as the Populist split with the Democrat Party in 1896 and the Dixiecrats from the same party in 1948.  The Republicans, not as old as their main competitor, have wrangled with progressive factions in 1904, 1908 and 1912.  Of course, the most divisive election was the 1860 election that pitted a Republican, two Democrats and a very vague third (fourth?) party.  Abraham Lincoln won that election with less than 40% of the vote. 

Conventions have been so contentious, violence has erupted from time to time.  In 1968, the violence erupted both on the convention floor and outside in the streets for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  The clash between police and protestors is well documented but few know of the fist-fights that nearly erupted on the convention floor.  When a Georgia delegate was being taken from the convention hall by security, CBS reporter Dan Rather tried to interview the man but security attacked, dragging him to the ground and punching him in the stomach.  Then, during the speech to introduce the candidate, George McGovern, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT) railed against what he termed the “Gestapo tactics” used by the Chicago police against protestors.  Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a man feared by many, moved toward the stage, being held back by several aids and his son, as he screamed and pointed at the stage, cursing out the senator and, in the colorful metaphors of Chicago, told him to go home. 

Since the 1970s, the nominating convention has slowly lost some of its intrigue and excitement.  After 1976, the candidates are known well in advance and the conventions have taken on the quality of a high school football pep rally.  It is a time where each party chooses speakers and multimedia to express its vision and what it offers for the country in the form of policy or initiatives.  Parties also take the time to point out how the other party is horribly wrong.  There are silly hats, sillier signs and absurd commentary.  To my knowledge, the idea of a convention and all it entails is rather unique with many of the world’s democracies following a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and without the strong, separate executive branch.  As for the past week in Tampa, the Republicans, from a non-political point of view, offered a well-run spectacle.  Next week, it will be the Democrats and again, I will be glued to the television. 

The Gathering of Storm Clouds

There are a series of events that are transpiring that could quickly destabilize various regions around the world.  In the past, the United States played a large and influential role in settling situations and calming fears – allowing for “cooler heads to prevail.”  In the past, the United States displayed a leadership that could convince otherwise truculent world leaders to compromise or stand down.  Critics of American foreign policy denounced the overbearing and bullying democracy.  President Obama feels that the U.S. has inappropriately and insensitively projected itself on world affairs in the past and promised not to follow that same path.  Activists around the world applauded the declaration.  Yet, in the Middle East and the Far East, things are quickly deteriorating and it begs the question if a stronger president could not have stemmed the tide. 

A while back, I worried that Syria was turning into a Rwanda.  Today, the international community has allowed a government to butcher its own people on a massive scale.  In the absence of international action or leadership, organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood have moved in to help the rebels.  However, the bloodshed continues and the government remains unrepentant even as its structure crumbles around them.  A new envoy, Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, now has the unenviable task of convincing a government who has ignored international pressure for over a year to put aside its aggression on its own people with little tangible outside help from the Americans and Europeans. 

To the southwest, Israeli leaders have given up hope of the international community rendering aid and are in the process of considering, if reports are to be believed, a strategic attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.  Israel has, unfortunately, needed to take this path before when it attacked and destroyed Iraq’s nascent nuclear reactor in 1981.  Recent reports on Iran’s nuclear capabilities suggest it is further along than anyone thought.  Not only does such developments threaten Israel but it is reasonable to suggest that predominantly Sunni Muslim countries are also at risk – not to mention western Europe and other U.S. allies.  While many international activists chastise Israel and despair of its “militaristic” tendencies, Israel might be forced to do what years of diplomacy have failed to accomplish. 

On a group of Japanese controlled islands, a bit of opera is playing out between the Japanese government and activists from China. The Senkaku islands are the center of a debate as to who controls the area. When the Japanese Coast Guard detained and questioned the activists, Beijing issued a strong condemnation as anti-Japanese protests erupted through the country. At stake for these islands south of Okinawa and just north of Taiwan are a litany of gas fields and a heavily traveled commercial shipping lane. China declares ancient rights to the islands but Japan has controlled them since the late 1800s.  To what extent China would be willing to fight over the islands is uncertain but two obdurate, tradition-rich and stubborn countries at odds is a point of concern.  Unfortunately, no one outside the region seems to notice.
 
Any one of these incidents can, by themselves, create the kind of foreign policy headache that risks the lives of tens of thousands. A strong and influential hand has traditionally been sought out from the United States but at present, it appears to be absent. As time goes by, the European Union grows increasingly pre-occupied with holding its economic structure in place. The Arab League has proven, to date, to be as ineffective and toothless as the organization it was patterned after – the United Nations. The world community releases one paper condemnation and outrage after another but things continue to deteriorate.

The president is pre-occupied by the coming election as any president would but Mr. Obama also needs to understand that he cannot focus solely on November. The boldness he displayed in ending the Osama bin Laden threat is required once more but he seems reluctant to enter the fray. If this is what we can expect from the president with an additional four years, perhaps we should take a longer look at Mr. Romney. Sadly though, if talk is to be believed, some of the situations could collapse long before the November election.

Why I’m a Conservative

Government can’t do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
            William F. Buckley, Jr.

As a teacher and one who comes from a predominantly Democratically-controlled state, the descendent of Jewish immigrants and union workers, it might seem odd that I call myself a conservative.  Some might go so far as to say it is down-right miraculous.  However, as I grew up, perhaps as a condition of my contrarianism, I saw the things around me and grew suspect of their validity and effectiveness.  I heard the rhetoric but did not see the results.  I heard the passion but missed the certainty and self-assuredness.  It was once said that religious faith does not come from wisdom but from personal experience.  For me, political awareness and conviction materialized in much the same way. 

For me, conservatism is a belief that does not belittle others but believes in the inherent worth and ability of the individual.  For example, fiscal conservatism suggests that every person has the chance to rise as high, economically, as they want and the U.S. created a system that allows people to do just that.  For nearly 300 years, people have flocked to what was to be and what is the United States in search for a better life.  It does not matter a man’s race, country of origin or previous experiences, in the U.S. a man has the chance to stand on his own merit.  Liberals, in order to maintain their own power structure, assumes a perpetual disadvantage of racial, economic or religious proportions.  The policies with which liberals do not agree are framed as a slight or as particularly injurious to minorities (the recent voter identification requirements an example).   

The belief in the individual also discounts the notion of the conservative as a racist, as often suggested by liberals – usually mentioned in arguments over entitlements.  A true conservative feels that it is better to teach a person to take of themselves than to use the government as a means of filling that role.  Many liberals see the extent of their concern as directly proportional to how much they are willing to take care of others.  Within their arguments, they use terms like “the disadvantaged” or “the unfortunate” and in the process, they adopt a paternalistic attitude that, to a conservative, is demeaning and strips them of their humanity.  Over the last eighty years, liberals have suggested that their policies and attitudes are designed to help but poverty has not receded.  In fact, in the last forty or fifty years, it seems to have worsened.  However, there is no reflection upon these policies and liberal calls for endless government spending that has nothing to show for the expense.  If one assumes that a person is in need of government help because of a minority status, is that not the real racist?   

Therefore, my belief in the individual also negates the need for an overpowering and all-encompassing government.  Our Founding Fathers had an inherent distrust of government and the ability of someone to rule from afar.  President Ronald Reagan said, “The ten most dangerous words in the English language are “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  As a conservative (and a historian), I realize that the government has never managed or operated anything that private hands could not do better and more efficiently.  When the government makes the assumption of its own legitimacy and superiority over its own people, where does that leave the average American?  The overwhelming trust that some have in the government has an inverse relationship with the lack of trust they have in people.   

In “cool” circles, there are no advantages to being a conservative.  Conservatives are roundly described as racists, hayseeds, uneducated and cruel.  Democrats declare that our policies are out to kill grandmothers and that we hate or cannot stand minorities, little children, down-on-their-luck single mothers and we probably kick puppies too.  Yet, in the condemnation, they show the madness of their declarations of tolerance and caring.  William F. Buckley, noted conservative thinker, once said, “Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”  As a conservative, I see the individual capable of more and I have greater belief in the individual.  At its core, that is why I’m a conservative.