For 248 years no right given us by the Founding Fathers has been more precious or invaluable than the right embodied in the First Amendment of free speech and the others listed in that sacred document, the Bill of Rights. We have come to realize in the last few years after the worst administration in American history took office that our freedom of speech is under constant, vicious and unrelenting attack by the far-left and it has even gone so far, as recounted in this column, that a sitting President of the United States has been banned from some social platforms. Additionally, President Trump was denied re-election almost certainly by the censoring of the “Laptop from Hell” right before the 2020 election and the blatant lie of 51 “former intelligence officials” who knew they were lying when they signed their infamous letter.
The following is a superb discussion of the history of the First Amendment, the Founding Father who created it and its critical importance in these dangerous times for our Republic. It is by a guest author publishing on John Kass’ excellent site, johnkassnews.com Here is the link should you wish to take a further look at that site, which is one of my favorites and highly recommended. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. God Bless America!
The Indispensable Man & The Indispensable Right
By James Banakis
October 18, 2024
Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which the government tells the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which
‘We the People tell the government what it is allowed to do. –
President Reagan’s farewell address 1989.
Who was the most indispensable American in our 248-year history? My choice, without question, is James Madison. Many would call Madison a slaveholding, white supremacist, and discount anything he wrote as out of touch with our 21st century values. The reality is his legacy and his vision is eternal.
In the years immediately after the revolution, our central government was adrift. Many of the founders wanted to create a monarchy, or have each state exist independently. Our constitution was primarily the creation of one man, Madison. The main body of the constitution is the blueprint for how our three branches of government operate independent of each other. His enduring concept created a strong but limited and self-policing government.
Madison’s true genius however was, The Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments. He understood how dangerous an unrestrained government could become. To protect the individual those first ten amendments are our sacred guarantees and protections against big government, despots, and repression. He wrote,
“The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”
Madison was president during the War of 1812. The British aware how threatening the system he created was to their empire, tried to capture or kill him. When he and his wife Dolly narrowly escaped, the British then burned down the White House. When the embers cooled, both Madison and our constitution survived.
Americans have always had a reverence for our Constitution. When our elected officials take the oath of office, they swear to protect not the government, not the people, not the United States, but the Constitution. This invisible respect for the gift of the founders established in the 1780’s, like any gift, can be taken for granted. Alarmingly many of our leaders are violating this sacred oath.
Professor Jonathan Turley, in his thoughtful and timely book, The Indispensable Right, quotes Justice Brandeis as saying that free speech is “indispensable to the discovery and the spread of political truth to discuss grievances and propose remedies.” Turley points out that we live in an age of rage. That is, the ability to harass and hate without responsibility. We live in a time of increasing intolerance for opposing views. He goes on to state, “Our Constitution was written not only for times like this, but in a time like this.” He warns though that calls for censorship, “is a sign of citizens becoming untethered from the values that have defined them.” Turley’s analysis is an examination of intervals in our history when the First Amendment was under attack.
He feels that now we face the most serious coordinated attack on the First Amendment from the media, academia, the administration, the military industrial complex, and social media companies. The confrontation from this group is their concept to transform the Constitution into a quirky, ever-changing, ever evolving new Constitution. In other words, neuter it.
Two years ago, the Biden administration planned to establish a so-called “Disinformation Governance Board.” The purpose of this “ministry of truth” was to monitor and suppress the speech of Americans. It was to be part of the Department of Homeland Security, the most abused department in our government. The head of this newly created board, Nina Jankowicz, was nothing more than a progressive operative. Remember the Mary Poppins parody song? After a nationwide uproar and pressure from Senator Josh Hawley, Secretary Mayorkas grudgingly put the program on HOLD.
All our constitutional rights enumerated are uniquely American and absolute. There is no freedom of speech in Canada or Great Britain which grants free speech to Parliament, but not the public. Today people in those countries are being imprisoned for speech someone in power took offense to. In Scotland, you can now be imprisoned for misgendering someone. For at least the past 12 years, our constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights have been under attack from the new Progressives. They especially dislike the first two amendments.
For years, the second amendment has been under attack. Democrats have chipped away at it. Their real objective is total confiscation. If they were concerned with making the country safer, they would enforce the strict laws already on the books in Chicago for example. Chicago averages almost 3,00 shootings a year, a third of which are homicides. Very few are incarcerated for possessing illegal or unregistered firearms, let alone using them in a crime. Shooting of innocents has become so commonplace, they’ve become just brain numbing statistics. Most people who think we don’t need guns in this country are not tyrants but well-meaning, naïve citizens. The founders granted the 2nd amendment for one important reason.
The right to bear arms is there to protect free speech and stop a tyrannical government from taking your rights away. That’s the first thing that all tyrants do is disarm the people. – Elon Musk
During the last election, the sitting President of the United States was removed and censored from Facebook and Twitter. His ability to communicate on social media was canceled. Mark Zuckerberg recently admitted that the FBI and the Biden campaign pressured social media to remove content. He now regrets he didn’t speak up. There is a growing authoritarianism on the left. Their goal is to silence and censor critics. They did it during the pandemic and they will continue to do it. The pandemic gave government carte blanche to remove our freedoms as they saw fit. It was a very dangerous interval constitutionally, a time we are still trying to navigate. Today, Elon Musk is the #1 target of those who would take away our freedom of speech. Why? Because they cannot control him or his free speech platform.
Hillary Clinton recently suggested jailing Americans for posting what she refers to as misinformation saying, “There needs to be a deterrence.” This from the cover girl of misinformation. She was the perpetrator of the Trump Russia allegation in 2016. Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says.
Professor Turley has warned that there is a global effort to stifle free speech and that Clinton’s suggestion is “chilling.”
Just a few weeks ago John Kerry, another of the truly dangerous people who thankfully were turned away from the presidency by the common sense of the American people made the following statement:
Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to hammer disinformation out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by winning enough votes to be able to implement that change.
He went on to say that we need a “truth arbiter” to define what the facts are. He complained that people go and self-select where to go for their news and information, making it difficult to govern. Well, Mr. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, that’s the way James Madison engineered the First Amendment. It’s our undeniable right to go when we want for our news and information.
Elizabeth Warren would like Amazon to use enlightened algorithms to steer readers to books promoting left-wing causes, “protecting them from their own poor reading choices.” The dismantling of the Constitution has become part of the chilling future blueprint of the Democratic party.
During his presidency, George Washington, like most presidents, had his frustrations with the press. Despite this he said: “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
The current Democratic nominee for president has championed limiting or shutting down speech. She refers to speech as a “privilege.” No Madam Vice President it is not and never has been a privilege, but our irrefutable constitutional right. A privilege is when you get a promotion at work, and they let you use the executive bathroom. Your boss can take the key away whenever he wants to. The current Democratic nominee for vice president has made this alarming claim, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech especially around our democracy.” There are 2 glaring problems with this statement. First, it is itself misinformation in the true sense. Second, and most importantly, there is a guarantee. It’s called the First Amendment. These statements should disqualify both people from holding office.
The way the left intends to take free speech away is by nibbling away at it until it disappears all together. All our protections in the Bill of Rights will be taken away from us from within. If you are an American who knows that stifling free speech is wrong or that using the courts against your political opponents is wrong, but stay silent for political expediency, you’re guilty of surrendering all our freedoms. We need to ALL be vigilant whenever anyone attacks our inalienable protections. Ronald Reagan reminded us, “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principle upon which it was founded.”
Our common culture, the way of life we all share is dependent on free speech. If you think of our nation as a building, the Bill of Rights is the foundation. If we allow someone to remove any of the bricks of that foundation the whole building will collapse. Our protection against someone doing that is the Supreme Court. Isn’t it interesting that the progressives want to pack the court, subjugating it to their goals. We need to be aware of the term “hate speech.” As abhorrent as someone’s speech is, it is still protected. It’s OK to call it out as repugnant, but wrong to legislate certain words or phrases as unlawful. It’s easy to protect speech that doesn’t offend anyone. The first amendment defends speech that others find offensive. Once we rupture this right it becomes a slippery slope to total censorship, and government tyranny. We must always remember; they work for us. We’re the ones that hold the key to their employee bathroom.
In the past, Americans have always instinctively protected their rights. As children, if we made a statement like,” Tommie John is a better pitcher than Fergie Jenkins, and another kid told you to be quiet, we’d say, “I don’t have to, it’s a free country.” All the kids used to respect that we in fact lived someplace where we could say anything we wanted to at any time. We might not have been constitutional scholars, but we knew we lived in a special place, a safe place. Thank you, James Madison.
In today’s atmosphere of “snowflakes and safe spaces,” many think it’s alright to censor speech to coddle the next generation. This is just a maneuver to cancel opposing thought. Our universities, the incubators of the future, used to be the safest heaven for free speech. Ideas were fearlessly debated, and professors were respected, but their opinions were often challenged and suspect by students. Speakers with unpopular viewpoints used to be fun to spar with. Today it’s the loony professors leading the sheep and shutting down any opposing ideas or speakers. Most importantly we need to bring back the study of the Constitution back into the curriculum. We need to constantly remind our children to safeguard our freedoms, and never fear speech, but embrace it and argue whichever way they want. This is how our healthy society interacts.
James Madison created the miracle of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the sparsely populated 13 colonies, an ocean away from the then civilized world. Its premise is simple, limited government with enumerated powers, and the preservation of individual rights. Our history has not been perfect, but throughout all our trials and difficulties, it has been the Bill of Rights that has protected us from progressivism, which I would characterize as a harnessing of government dominance over the individual. I trust in the American spirit and the common sense the American people, but we must always remain vigilant to the erosion of our liberty. Especially in this most significant election period.
We are hardwired for free speech with a psychological and even a physiological impulse to create. If you believe that free thought and expression are the essence of being human, that impulse cannot be entirely extinguished. It is hard to get a free people to give up freedom. It is free speech that defines us. -Jonathan Turley
Note: The painting is of course from Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms and I must note every time I see it it reminds me of a good friend and courageous stalwart in our home town who bravely took on the sneers and condescending attitudes of the members of a certain public body from which we were once ejected for exercising the very right which is the subject of this column. I will never forget his courage and this portrait is a perfect illustration of a brave citizen standing up to peaceably discuss his grievances, just as we all have a right to do. Would that we had more citizens like that. JAG