I’ve heard many people proselytize about Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion and Freedom to do damned near anything you want. However, there is a huge misconception about what this means. Typically, if you get people of high-school or college age, they hear the words, ascribe their own simplistic understanding to it, and believe that the first amendment pretty much supports complete anarchy. Idealism has it’s place but not as an override to reason.
What they really don’t understand is that there are limits to everything. Everything. When you take something too far, you cause problems. Go ahead, eat nothing but bananas. Daily. 50 times a day. Let’s see how well that works for you. Just because bananas are good, it doesn’t mean taking it to the extreme is good as well. 1 may be good. But life doesn’t translate into if 1 is good, 1000 is better.
Speech has limits. For instance, if someone were to threaten a person’s daughter with vulgar, physical atrocities, it’s logical to expect the parent would temporarily lose sanity and commit a felony ass whooping upon said threatener. That’s not a shock. And because we know it’s not a shock, because we know there are certain words that will elicit a physically violent reaction, we have created two types of speech: Protected and Unprotected. What this means is you really CAN’T say absolutely anything you want. I’d love to put a poll here where people express their rage at this and assign their age to their answer. You’d see it supports my assertion above.
Let’s take this to the next step. If you think Freedom of Speech should mean anything and you believe that you should be able to threaten a guy’s 10 year old daughter without violent retaliation from the father, let’s take it to the skinning little puppies part of the Tuesday evening ritual as part of someone’s religion. Is that what Freedom of Religion is? No. Freedom of Religion extends to the end of your nose. Everything else is governed by laws. For instance, you cannot skin puppies for your religious purposes. Even if you really, really, really want to. You are allowed to believe any damned thing you want. That is where Freedom of Religion ends. It does not mean you can practice any thing you want.
For most, this is not new. For some, you’ll probably need to add at least 10 years to your life before you’ll have the capacity to comprehend certain concepts. Don’t worry, I’m not calling you stupid. It’s simply that the human brain takes longer to form completely than people think.
Where the hell is this all going, you ask?
Good question, glad you asked.
It’s about muscles. How often do you use your muscles? I don’t mean for walking and stuff. I mean for running away from dangerous bears and fighting off thugs. Not often probably. I know there are some bad-asses out there, but really, you’re not using your life and death muscles daily (barring people in the government who are paid for such things). However, wouldn’t it be nice if your muscles were available and ready when you needed them? That’s why we train. That’s why we exercise. Sit ups, push ups, etc. All designed to ensure that our muscles are ready for those emergent situations when we really need them.
So too are your Bill of Rights. They are 10 muscles that you may not use daily. Hell, I hope you never have to use them in an emergency situation. But that’s the point of exercise, to ensure that when you need those muscles, they are there.
I’ve recently had a conversation with a few people who have educated themselves and not only exercise their rights, but actively battle with them frequently.
But exercise does not mean war. Exercise does not mean you must go out and protest something or throw your religion in others’ faces. It means that if you are ever in that position of defense or offense with regard to your rights, you will be ready.
It would be nice to have a workbook to work through, like a workout regimen, to follow and use in order to learn and exercise your rights. And perhaps they are out there ( I just checked and they are ). But regardless, you must learn to exercise them nonetheless, whether you have a guide or not.
This does not mean that you must start a war or go on the offensive. I know some people will read this and think that. It does not. Exercise has nothing to do with going out and punching someone. Exercising your second amendment does not mean take up arms against ANYONE. An exercise means you educate yourself about the muscle and you practice with the muscle. Have you ever practiced a debate? Have you learned how to construct a formal argument? I took a philosophy class on how to argue once. It was one of the best damned classes I’ve ever taken. When it comes down to “war” are you going to be a foot soldier that chants out, “you’re stupid and we’re right and you smell like poo cause you are not us?” Or are you going to be able to persuasively communicate a cogent argument for your cause that actually affects change in someone else’s mind whose opinion was previously contrary to yours? Exercise. Practice. Drill.
Battles happen; physical, internal, external, governmental, political, moral, etc. If you sit back and hope to be powerful when the time comes, you are fooling yourself.
There are people who may possess enough intelligence to realize this principle applies to so many things in life, but this is about your Bill of Rights. Learn. Educate. Exercise.
