Posted by
lobo1776 on Friday, July 13, 2007 8:18:30 AM
"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."
In today's Townhall forum Michael Reagan writes an excellant column entitled "A Culture War of Words". The most poignant part of the piece is when he writes:
"The America in which I grew up had standards, and people’s public behavior was judged by how well they measured up to those standards. One was expected to toe the line when it came to the way they communicated with one another. We were expected to show our respect to our fellow Americans by avoiding offensive words. Once upon a time one was expected to be a gentlemen or lady, and those terms -- now treated with scorn -- described people who had the utmost of respect for those around them and showed it in their everyday behavior."
and this observation:
"In any civilization that desires to survive, simple decency and courtesy are crucial elements. In a society headed for the sewer, anything goes. And when anything goes -- when the most extreme forms of language and behavior come to be seen as normal -- civilization is transformed into barbarism."
Many people in this country, especially those in the entertainment industry, seem to believe that the First Amendment to the Constitution, in regards to free speech, gives them the right to say what they want, how they want to say it and where they want to say it. They insist that obsenities, lewd actions, nudity etc. are expressions of art, and that any attempts to curtail them is censorship. The Supreme Court hasn't helped any. The SCOTUS over the last 40 years has twisted the First Amendment to allow that every form of speech is protected. But is it? Can we honestly believe that our Founding Fathers actually meant foul language and indecent acts were protected?
I doubt it. Let's not forget our Founding Fathers were Christian men of strong beliefs and strong moral principles. They incorporated the idea of free speech into the Constitution because they remembered the "bad old days", pre 1776. At that time there was no freedom of speech. The king ruled by divine right and basically considered himself a god on earth. Noone could challenge or speak against him without fear of terrible punishment: being imprisoned, losing property or life. The frames of the Constitution remembered this and crafted an amendment that allows us to publically discuss political ideas. Thats all the First Amendment allows and nothing more. Anything else has been read into it by a generation (baby boomers) who somehow got a crazy notion in their heads that they should be allowed to do and say anything they want as long as they are happy.
One more comment from Mike:
"That’s what’s at stake in the culture wars. A society bereft of standards that demand civilized behavior among its people is a society where the individual is deemed worthless as being anything but a consumer for the degraded wares of the smut peddlers and a source of income to pay for the schemes of those who sell Marxist snake oil such as global warming as a means of subjugating the populace. And the more addicted to slime that populace becomes, the easier it is to subjugate them."
Amen to that Mike, amen to that!!!