Thoughts on The First Amendment

There are two problems with the recent outrage over kneeling sports figures: The first is ignorance, and the second is hypocrisy.

Ignorance, because I don’t know how anyone who understands The First Amendment to our Constitution could criticize any citizen for a peaceful protest. The very reason that amendment is there is for the protection of all thoughts and speech, regardless of our personal opinions.

 Abbie Hoffman said, “You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.”

Or, if you don’t trust Abby, how about Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who described First Amendment rights as, “not (just) free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”

My favorite example of defending the rights of our citizens to express thoughts that we hate occurred when the ACLU defended the rights of an American Nazi group to stage a rally in Skokie, IL in 1978. At that time, the population of Skokie was about 40% Jewish, including over 600 survivors of concentration camps. The ACLU won the case in the IL Supreme Court, and the ACLU lawyers, many of whom were Jewish, got to go to Thanksgiving Dinners with their families and explain to their Bubbes why their love of the Constitution trumps defending the rights of the scum of the earth to make a mockery of the holocaust. 

And now a word on hypocrisy, and what it means to Support Our Troops!

 How concerned are our flag-waving citizens about our young men and women who have managed to survive their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, in many cases with inferior weaponry and vehicles, only to be asked to go back again. 

Do they feel an obligation to understand the reasons why 4491 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq as of July of 2016?  If asked, could they explain why we have been there for 16 years? 

And how many letters have they written to their congressmen about helping our vets who make up 10% of the national homeless population, or who compromise 20% of our national suicides?

Do our ultra-patriots care about any of that? Or has that bumper sticker got them covered?