Our First Amendment rights are quickly slipping away – The Navigator

To the editor:

The forefathers of our country were very intelligent and insightful people. They were able to see how important freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly were to the survival of a democratic government. Both of these ideals were incorporated within the First Amendment.

After watching the riots at Berkeley University over the speaker Yiannopoulos last week, I am highly concerned how easily we are willing to discard the First Amendment.

I listened to some of the students at Berkeley proclaim victory because the speaker was not able to give his presentation. When a student was asked by a reporter if stopping the speaker was not a violation of our freedom of speech as outlined in the Constitution, her reply was that his was not free speech, but hate speech.

I scratch my head and wonder how we have arrived at a point where you are only allowed to speak when other people consent and agree with your point of view. If you do not agree with a presenter, you have options. You can choose to boycott, peacefully assemble to protest or totally dismiss and ignore the ideas of the speaker and go watch a ballgame with some friends.

You are not entitled to keep the presenter from speaking!

The First Amendment, in addition to free speech, also gives you the right of peaceful assembly. It seems that some of the protesters also missed that part of the Constitution. You do not have the right to vandalize ATM machines, break windows, throw bricks, throw firecrackers, spray pepper spray, punch people and set public property on fire. In the name of political correctness, the protesters had the audacity to spray paint fascists on some of the buildings in the riot zone.

Fascisim restricts free speech, yet the protesters wish to restrict who may speak. Now, I ask you who is the real Fascist? One of the core values of a university and its students should be free speech!

When I was principal at ECHS, I had a situation where a group of students had protested the Christian religion in the parking lot. Most of the student body was very upset with this small group.

Concerned, I called the school attorney, who by reputation was one of the top attorneys in the state dealing with school law. He asked me how I felt about what the students had done, and I told him that I as shocked by their actions (Shocked is a school law term). The attorney told me that I had to remember that the First Amendment is not a light switch which can be turned on and off at my or anyone elses discretion. Just because you dont like it, you dont agree with it or you dont consider it politically correct, people are allowed to express their ideas without hindrance.

The wise words of the attorney have stuck with me over the years, and I often think of them during turbulent times and how they apply!

This letter is my First Amendment right to express myself. I thank God that I live in a country that says I have that right..

This issue is not about being a Democrat or Republican. I couldnt give a hoot about this particular speaker, as I am not familiar with his ideas, but I do care about the First Amendment. As a former teacher of the U.S. Constitution, I do recognize that curtailing any aspect of our right to freedom of speech is a slippery slope. The real issue of my concern is that once you start deciding what people can say, where do you stop? Under the guise of political correctness, you now have made yourself judge, jury and executioner of the First Amendment.

A sad epitaph to the Berkeley riot is that the students think they won, but what did they really lose?

Stan Struckmeyer

Albion

Continued here:
Our First Amendment rights are quickly slipping away - The Navigator