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[ Prev | Next | Index ] 2/20/96, rickwood@mindspring.com, Atlanta, GA USA |
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Note: The protest organizers have the permanent location of this page on record, not the regular address. So, if you have come upon this page while paging through the links of the 24 Hours of Democracy project, please feel free to poke around, but realize that this URL is not the regular address of my semi-weekly diatribes. What Freedom Means To Me"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." These 45 words don’t seem to define freedom. For me, however, they do.
Any man from any age could read that short paragraph, and realize that there was something
special about a people that would make these words part of the law of the land.
There are ten amendments to the Constitution that comprise the "Bill of Rights".
Of all of them, however, the first is the King. To be secure in your effects without the
ability to speak your mind is meaningless. The right to bear arms is pointless, if you and I
cannot discuss whatever comes to mind, without worrying about what the neighbors might think.
In short, while each of the freedoms guaranteed to me in the Constitution is dear to my
heart, they all pale when compared to the right to speak my mind without fear of
governmental retribution.
Alas, though, government is by its very nature evil at its core. Where enlightened self
interest would suffice, government creates law; law without merit, law executed without
forethought. Where law cannot pass, where the people would not stand for such a law,
government regulates without legislation.
So now it has come to pass that government has come for The First Amendment. Already, the
second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth amendments have fallen, and the
people did not whimper. "Need to get tough on crime," they said. They
rationalized away the rights our founders thought were necessary for a free society.
Now that government has decided to rule on what can and cannot be said, our last bastion
of freedom is in peril. Still the people do not look up from their stupor. I pray that it
is not too late to save this great nation, and the freedoms it was founded on. For if it
is, a great experiment shall have failed, and the greatest nation in the history of
mankind shall have fallen.
In closing, I offer two thoughts. The first, is a call to the people to wake up. Your
nation is under attack by forces from within, and it is up to you to do something about
it. Do not rationalize that someone else is guarding the gates. They are not. It is
you who is personally responsible.
The second, are the words of Benjamin Franklin, from the Historical Review of
Pennsylvania"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Think hard about these words. You may not be able to for much longer.
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