I continue to be enamored with our United States Constitution, its awesome sagacity, and all its wonderful amendments! You and I have such special rights as citizens of the United States including the wondrous rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, things that were never available in Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) under the ruling military junta, Russia under Putin, and so on and so on!
Amendment I states: “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 of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Aside to Marlene, kudos to you, too!) In other words, I can be a Southern Baptist as I was raised; I can be a Presbyterian elder, which I am; and I can attend the Episcopal Church, as I choose to do; again, when the pandemic finally wanes enough to prevent super-spreader events. (Fingers crossed for the “non” super-spreader event materializing this weekend as the Super Bowl!)
I strongly hope I am not riling people up (Marlene’s words) with my use of free speech (never my intention here), because we are all so very lucky to have that right. I repeat! We are all so very lucky! All of us! You and I, we together! My musings are just that, observations about our beautiful Central Texas, our proud state, our wondrous nation, and the world, such as we make it!
Marlene, in her good letter to me, made a strong point that all our opinions as citizens and, importantly, of the press as well, can be constitutionally and thereby legally expressed, that Fox News and NewsMax, like CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, ad infinitum, have the right to exist and to express their opinions. The issues that arise on occasion with all these entities seem to be is if there is hurtfulness and absence of truth by individuals and/or these news media, as in the case of slander and libel. (Note: legal recourse!)
Interesting to see both Fox News and NewsMax equilibrating (in this case, backpeddling) with the lawsuits now filed by Dominion and Smartmatic voting machine companies against them. (Google them!) Again, I guess the deciding factor for these lawsuits to actually be brought to trial is truth and the lack of hurtfulness, “libel and slander.”
I have written multiple times in these articles how important it is for us to have exposure to many sources of information and many opinions, all of us! I personally love to read and I read a lot on many subjects (not so much, math!) and that we, as citizens, should form our own opinions based upon varied and widespread voices from literature, factual information, history, government, politics, economics, the media, and world events. The key is to learn broadly, not to just hear what we want to hear, but also to hear other viewpoints and perspectives. As an aside, but also emphasizing it again, saying NO to “disinformation,” whereby misinformation is told and retold until it is perceived as truth, a sad by-product of today’s social media.
Even so, I agree with Marlene that some viewpoints may be more widely expressed than others. Some feel that conservative viewpoints are often overlooked. Maybe so, but our country’s history continues to be the result of balanced conservative and liberal swings from one viewpoint to another.
Remember how our presidents have always been chosen, Republican to Democrat then back, a history of pendulum swings from right to left and back again. As per usual, good judgment should always be the deciding factor, and it usually is. Our democracy continues to exist, sans dictators, sans successful coup d’etats! Thank Goodness!
Lastly, and importantly, the right to free and peaceable assembly to seek government redress is an important part of the first amendment which is guaranteed to us all. The January 6th right in Washington to free assembly was protected until it became no longer peaceful. The rampaging protesters or “insurrectionists” violated their rights to assemble when they became violent and marched on the Capitol.
In attacking Congress and the Capitol, these individuals broke the law. Just as when protest movements become riots, violators who break windows and burn buildings are and should be arrested. We frequently hear that Black Lives Matter, the Charlottesville protests and other simple protests are evil, but they are simply our guaranteed and respected First Amendment rights until vandalism, riots, and murders may occur by fire extinguishers, speeding cars, and gunshots.
Thank you again and again, our wonderful 1787 framers of the United States Constitution! Your incredible birthing of our democracy and its Constitution have been challenged again and again throughout our history, and yet, it has survived! QAnon or no!