The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or religion. The Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Those words are not suggestions.The Founders did not write the Constitution so later generations would surrender those rights because someone is upset. They did not write them so a mob could shut down a speaker because the words hurt. They did not write them so politicians could chip away at gun rights because someone is scared of a rifle they have never held.Free speech is messy. It offends. It is supposed to. The answer to a bad argument is a better argument, not a ban. The answer to crime is punishing criminals, not punishing the law-abiding neighbor who owns a gun.Feelings are not a constitutional category. Annoyance is not a constitutional category. If a right only exists when nobody is bothered, it is not a right. It is a permission slip.The issue is freedom. That is too important to trade away for a quieter feed or a safer-sounding slogan. Momentary inconvenience is the price of a free country. The people who wrote the document knew that. They had just fought a war over it.Limited government means the state does not get to decide which opinions are allowed and which citizens may be armed. Equal application of the law means the same rules for the speaker you like and the speaker you hate.Once you start carving exceptions for hurt feelings, you do not get the exceptions back. You get a smaller Bill of Rights and a larger class of people who decide what you may say and own.The Constitution does not tell you to give up your rights so someone else can feel better. It tells the government to leave those rights alone.
In Album: Judy Gilford's Timeline Photos
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