September 25 is celebrated, at least in some spaces, as First Amendment Day, because the Bill of Rights, of which the First Amendment is the crowning achievement, was approved on September 25, 1789. The First Amendment is seen as a gateway to democracy. I think it is democracy. Without it, nothing else in the Constitution would matter, nothing would hold up.
The document is so sweeping as to take your breath away. It encompasses so many potential actions and previous activities that its scope surpasses astonishment. But it is what we're made of. Without it, there's nothing about America that makes it unique or pleasant to live within.
If you wade into the First Amendment, though, your head begins to spin. The first set of issues must come from the first part of the statement: Freedom of religion. The "establishment clause" is supposed to stand in direct juxtaposition with the "free exercise" clause that immediately follows. That is, government can't establish an "official" religion because I'm supposed to be free to deal with religion as I see fit, including not at all. The phrase is there to keep government out of my mind, within which I am free to think as I please and free to express myself in like manner. No coercion allowed, in other words.
There is supposed to be a separation of church and state. And in the most practical sense, ask any legislator of either party, whether they're inclined to admit it or not, whether discussion of What Jesus Would Do enters any hearing on any budget. It's all symbolic and meant to be no more than a salve.
Maybe that's what the Supreme Court had in mind when it allowed a high school football coach to lead his team in prayer after a game, in full sight of the crowd and all. But isn't there implied coercion behind joining the team in prayer? Isn't there a chance that, if push comes to shove, a certain player wanting to be on the starting team wouldn't be allowed to because he took a principled stand?
But the Supreme Court is now filled with Catholics. They won't leave that on the shelf. They listen to a source we were supposed to be free from. Supreme Court justices should not be religious. To the contrary, they should be agnostics. These issues should be moot. Laws should not be passed nor activities governed by whether or not they please the almighty as someone understands them.
Onward to freedom of speech and press, closely bound in practice. A current case in front of the Supreme Court asks whether social media sources which have become widely used can ban certain people from belonging to them.
It's a tricky issue as the current Supreme Court is put together. The majority believes that businesses should be allowed to function in the freest atmosphere possible, ideally without interference. So a private corporation (which has been interpreted to be a 'person' in Citizens United) can allow or disallow membership as it pleases, right? But if that social media becomes so pervasive, like Twitter or Facebook, so that 'everybody' uses it, isn't that unfair and a denial of rights that have fused onto everyone else? If I'm excluded, I'm free to establish my own social medium, right? But the economic burden placed upon me is beyond enormous. It's folly to assume that just anybody can create their own corporation, right? But if that's true, where did the creators of Facebook and Twitter get their impetus? So that doesn't work, at least not logically.
But since ex- has been muscled out of Facebook and Twitter, his sycophants in important positions, such as Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general, come rushing to his defense of being able to spread innuendoes and lies in the most popular and widely-used medium. So is the purpose of such media to spread the truth? Or to spread information and misinformation (i.e. lies) to allow the public to make a decision as to the degree of believability it wishes to accept? Stay tuned. This one will be interesting.
Of things in print, recent bannings have become frenzied and ghastly irrational, as I have documented not long ago. Let me ask this, though: If To Kill a Mockingbird can be banned, wouldn't that also be true of a recent book published by someone named Helgard Muller, referring to ex- as The Son of Man--the Christ (Which is, reportedly, being distributed at ex-'s rallies now)? If that is permissible for open discussion, as incredibly crazy that assumption is, what in To Kill A Mockingbird would be equally as absurd? And what would be in it that would ban its distribution and allow Muller's obvious pack of lies to be distributed?
Free press is free press. Publish and be damned. And I hope Muller is. But to ban it would bring down opprobrium on the censors, make Muller and ex- into victims (again), and draw more attention to it (as I've said here before). Better to allow stupid people to be openly stupid, to reflect the desperate extremism that is beginning to emerge due to a doubling-down on the same fears that got ex- into the ultimately inappropriate position he unfortunately occupied for four long years. The meaning of that enormous mistake is just as eligible for analysis as any other public act or office.
That's allowing the "marketplace of ideas," as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it long ago, to function as it should, as a self-regulating force that allows reason to overcome nonsense. But that assumes that people will step up and make their stands known. That cannot be guaranteed. But the First Amendment protects that, too.
Meeting in assembled places is also covered by the First Amendment. That includes meeting to complain as well as celebrate. Ex- showed us what he thought of assemblies he didn't like when he sent police both on foot and mounted horses to break up a Washington, DC, Black Lives Matter protest just outside the White House upon George Floyd's murder in 2020. But he praised the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 as being "good people." You can't have it both ways, though. You must allow the stupidly unthinking to say what they wish, as long as they don't get in anybody else's reasonable way.
That's the double-edged sword of freedom. That's what we have to live with in order for liberty under law to continue to function. Should ex- get back into power, one of the first things he'll do is to try to stifle those outlets who are unrelentingly critical of him. He will not merely criticize them, either. He will try to take 'official' steps to keep them from bringing him back into public scrutiny, which is what free speech and press are supposed to be for.
That's why he must be stopped, and the rigging of election results so that one side is guaranteed victory must be stopped, too. That will take a huge roar of outcry. Our jobs, our collective and individual jobs, of preserving democracy aren't finished yet. Indeed, they are just beginning.
That should be the message of First Amendment Day: Preserve it while it can yet be preserved. Once lost, it will be practically impossible to get it back. The shadow of fascism lurks, and the First Amendment is the only thing that can ward it off.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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