Measuring up to the First Amendmemt

The September 14-15, 2019 edition of our local newspaper, the Parsons Sun, included an informative page 4 column titled, “First Amendment not just ‘office hours’ or when convenient.” A reporting in large part drawing attention to public officials in high and low office who, with various intentions, at times strive to shut down vocal opposition. Citing, for example, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 2017 reporting that lawmakers in nearly 20 state legislatures “proposed bills in 2017 that would restrict people’s right to protest.”

The referenced page 4 column also aptly posed that the practice of simply providing ordinary citizens at public meetings with email addresses, or promises to “get back” to them, does not “measure up”—i.e., to our First Amendment protected basic right to speak directly to public officials in public about matters of public interest. A First Amendment freedom that is, as also noted within the column, “inextricably intertwined with a deliberately messy, sometimes inconvenient or tedious, often inefficient, occasionally confrontational and impolitic system of self-government called democracy.”

Unfortunately, in addition to actions of afflicted aspects of government, there will likely long exist many other direct or roundabout ways to silence critics. Such as, educational institutions that choose to be absorbed in "political activism" and the “selective application” of First Amendment rights. As well as, print/visual/sound media that choose to not include, in their publications/broadcasting product, a practical, user-friendly, and otherwise meaningful tool for general public (Public Mind/Opinion) expression of public interest views and concerns. That is, expression of views and concerns not encumbered by so-called political-correctness and other freedom of speech impediments, media-imposed or otherwise.

Hence, for example, in exercising their ownership rights, the local newspapers covering our various communities, as well as other media, must ultimately choose—whether to “measure up” to our First Amendment protected freedoms, or to the functional behavior implied by the following quotation often attributed to A.J. Liebling: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

However, the importance of and responsibility for “measuring up” ends not with the above mentioned examples. For, as each of us within the general public and otherwise go about exercising, defending, and demanding our rightful liberties and freedoms, it remains always indisputably crucial that we each do so within considerate and commonsense limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.                                 —William James Moore 09/21/2019.

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Remarks: Above article was submitted to, and subsequently published on Page 4, in Public Mind section, of Weekend, Saturday-Sunday, September 21-22, 2019 Edition of our local newspaper, the Parsons Sun.