We Must Protect The First Amendment At All Costs vs. No Thanks, I’ll Just Take My Freedoms For Granted Until They Disappear

By Amanda Jacobson

POINT

We Must Protect The First Amendment At All Costs

There are few words more essential in American government-indeed, in American history itself-than the first five of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law." These words affirm that our freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition cannot be taken from us by an act of even the highest legislative body in the land. These freedoms are the first in the Bill of Rights because they are fundamental. They are the rights that give all our other rights context and purpose. In just 45 words, the First Amendment spells out what it means to be a free American.

But, like any law, the First Amendment is only as strong as our willingness to protect it.

The truth is that unless it's actively defended, the First Amendment is just a high-minded statement of principles on an 18th-century sheet of parchment. We've gotten so used to living in a society protected by the First Amendment that we often neglect our duty to keep those freedoms safe from those who would threaten them in the name of a personal or political agenda. And that can't happen, not if we want to keep living in a country worthy of the Founding Fathers' ideals. The responsibility falls to all of us.

I'm no First Amendment scholar. I'm not a congresswoman or a civil liberties activist. I'm just an ordinary citizen who loves her country, knows the stakes, and is ready to make her voice heard.

And I'll start by saying this: Who's with me?

By Todd Barnes

COUNTERPOINT

No Thanks, I'll Just Take My Freedoms For Granted Until They Disappear

Um, I'm not. Sorry if that makes me sound like a dick. I'm not against the First Amendment or anything. If someone said I could, like, erase the First Amendment right now, I'd say no" in two seconds. It's just that the First Amendment is not something I think about or intend to think about anytime in the future. I guess what I'm planning to do is just take my First Amendment freedoms for granted until they're gone.

Look, a busy person like me isn't going to spend a bunch of time in his day going to bat for the First Amendment, not when I can just act like it'll always be there until one day I'm proven disastrously wrong. For me, it's much more convenient to pretend that the First Amendment is untouchable and then discover way too late that its freedoms are fragile and can actually be stripped away from all of us. Possibly forever.

Yeah, I'll eventually learn the hard way. For now, though, I'm more than okay with fooling myself into believing I won't.

If you ask me what freedoms are contained in the First Amendment, I can give you speech, and I think religion's another? Maybe the right to choose lunch? I dunno. I can't tell you what the others are, or even how many there are, which is totally fine because I'm just waiting until they vanish to find out what they used to be. Makes sense, right?

Hey, if people want to protect the First Amendment, I'm not going to stop them. I hope they do a great job. And who knows? Maybe I'll check in on my rights from time to time. But if I'm being honest, I'm just going to kick back and assume all is well until it really, really isn't. I guess it won't matter what I do after that.

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