Revisiting The First Amendment. What the Founders Actually Meant In Light Of How We Are Seeing It "Misappropriated"

When I originally wrote this, we were already off the tracks. Presently, we don't even have any wheels left!

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason... Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. - Frederick Douglas

Exercising your Free Speech Right in America today can be hazardous to your health

Riley Gaines was speaking at one of our insane asylums comically called “institutions of higher learning”, San Francisco University. She was chased by a mob and assaulted TWICE by a man masquerading as a woman. Security cowardly hid her for three hours till the inmates got bored and went away, instead of calling for back up and handling the situation.

Before beginning a discussion about the First Amendment, we need to re-establish some truths. First, you are created in the image and likeness of God. Of course, not in a physical sense. Why is this a fact? Because of your consciousness, your spirit, which is the real you that does not reside in your brain. You are a spiritual being having a human experience.

While having this human experience, we have the power to think and reason. The power of free will to discern right from wrong and make decisions based on our experiences and beliefs. We also have the power of imagination and creation, though not in the same sense as God. As a free creation of God, you have a right to experience these things!

The Founders were well read and familiar with the great philosophers that espoused the ideas I just mentioned.

The Declaration of Independence was largely inspired by 17th century philosopher John Locke, from his most famous writings, A Letter Concerning Toleration and Second Treatise of Government. Thomas Jefferson skillfully condensed both of these writings to create the Declaration, this being the most famous part:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --

I still cringe remembering Chelsea Clinton reciting the Declaration while stumping for her mother claiming you have a right to happiness which of course is absurd.

The Bill of Rights was added to the original Constitution because some of the soon to become states wanted more assurance as to the limit of the government they created.

The First Amendment is first because it reiterates your rights as a free creation of God to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government to right wrongs.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As the Second Amendment reiterates your God-given right to defend yourself and your ability to keep these rights.

Thomas Jefferson authored what became the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the precursor to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. It passed in 1786. This is the beginning:

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was his Almighty power to do . . .

The Act itself:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced … in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

What does “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” mean?

That Congress won't establish a national religion. The colonies had state sanctioned religions before the Constitution that were supported by taxes. (Only Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware did not.)

Or prohibit you from practicing your religion freely in public. ANYWHERE actually.

We have this absurd idea that stated somewhere in the Constitution is the phrase “separation of church and state”, when it is only part of a sentence in a private letter in 1802 from Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association assuring them that the First Amendment would guarantee free practice of religion in the public square without any interference from the government:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

When reading the phrase in context, it is crystal clear what Jefferson was actually saying!

It became famous when Justice Hugo Black in 1947 used it in his opinion in Everson v. Board of Education, a case that states funding transportation of all students to and from their schools, including parochial schools, WAS constitutional. Then also in 1947, it was flipped and used by the Supreme Court in McCollum v. Board of Education to forbid religious instruction in public schools.

The phrase actually means the opposite of how it is being interpreted!

It is the oddest thing that every session of Congress begins with a prayer from a U.S. government paid Chaplain. Supreme Court begins with an invocation. Yet displaying the Ten Commandments in a public setting or having a Christmas tree or a Minora in a City Hall, or voluntarily saying a prayer at a school sporting event is violating “the wall of separation between church and state”!

Playing devil's advocate, those who feel that no religion whatsoever should be in the public square, etc., are actually violating the First Amendment, since by doing so they are advocating atheism, which is a belief system, hence a religion!

Upping the ante, we now have the FBI actually targeting traditional Catholics and committing perjury by lying about it

FBI Director Christopher Wray lying under oath in a Congressional hearing:

1. On information from the repeatedly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center naming traditional Catholics as a hate group, the FBI began investigating them, with Wray denying the FBI targets religious groups.

2. Wray said the report and investigation were limited to Virginia while an FBI whistleblower said the report and investigation went nationwide.

3. With absolute proof Wray perjured himself, why was he not held in contempt of Congress?

Regarding abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, the freedoms of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal action:

The idea of free speech came from ancient Greece. The word “parrhesia” means “free speech,” or “to speak candidly”. Athenians were able to discuss politics and religion and to criticize the government in a limited way.

The First Amendment doesn't specifically say what is free speech. Courts have somewhat defined prohibited speech:

• Obscene material such as child pornography

  • Speaking about and showing children the “educational material” which has somehow made it into even nursery schools would get you arrested on the street and put away for years!

• Plagiarism of copyrighted material

  • The Dean of Harvard, Claudine Gay, has made a career of plagiarism, the most egregious of academic sins, yet still has her position.

• Defamation (libel and slander)

• True threats

• Speech inciting illegal actions or soliciting others to commit crimes aren’t protected under the First Amendment either.

  • The chant “no justice, no peace”, used by BLM and others when a court decision doesn't go their way to justify burning down cities

After that, it's all good. However, in modern America, free speech practically doesn't exist! Colleges supposed to be the centers for free speech and free discussion of ideas ACTUALLY have little areas that are the ONLY place on campus free speech is allowed! A student at a college in California was prohibited from distributing copies of the Constitution-on-Constitution Day!

The student, Robert Van Tuinen, eventually won a lawsuit for his First Amendment Rights being violated.

BLM and Antifa burned down cities and didn't get this kind of treatment!

And of course, ANYTHING the “woke” don't agree with is now hate speech.

What was really meant by “the freedom of the press”?

Just as the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms is misunderstood because of ignorance of what the Founders meant, so is the First Amendment Freedom of the Press. There were of course newspapers, with some of the Founders frequently submitting their opinions. Benjamin Franklin pushed for wider acceptance of journalism and newspapers because he felt they would be important to the freedom of the country. But what exactly were the Founders talking about? The PRINTING PRESS itself, and the freedom of ANY CITIZEN to speak his mind and have his ideas freely distributed in the best way at that time, without fear of punishment. Benjamin Franklin owned several "presses" and felt he and other press owners were obligated to allow anyone to put into print their thoughts on any matter, with a warning:

"When truth has fair play, it will always prevail over falsehood. If what is thus published be good, mankind has the benefit. If it be bad...the more tis made public, the more its weakness be exposed, and the greater disgrace falls upon the author, whoever he be.”

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published a 47-page pamphlet titled “Common Sense” which eventually reached 500,000 copies in its first year, phenomenal for the time. It was a major influence in getting the general public behind the American revolution.

Another thought on the free press by Franklin:

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till, they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”

An interesting observation in light of the former “Tweeters” and others who migrated to Substack and think a free speech and undoubtedly a free press site needs censorship:

Tireless Busybodies Again Target Substack

(I think we can apply it also to our insane censorship of free speech today.)

When YOU as an individual put any idea in print, on the internet, or in your social media, YOU are exercising your right to the Freedom of the Press. If a social media site censors your writing on orders from the government, that right is being violated!

Recounting violations of the First Amendment by the Biden Administration

Over 50 officials in President Joe Biden’s administration across a dozen agencies have been involved with efforts to pressure Big Tech companies to crack down on alleged misinformation, according to documents released on Aug. 31.

In July 2021, for instance, after Biden said that Facebook was “killing people” by not combating misinformation effectively, an executive at Meta reached out to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, a Biden appointee, to say that government and Meta teams met after the remarks “to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.”

And back then you thought it was just the fact checkers at Facebook, Twitter, etc., messing with you.

In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate claimed that just 12 people—described as the “Disinformation Dozen”—were responsible for most of the “anti-vaccine” content on social media.

And as you know, THEY were the ones telling us the truth about the Covid 19 “plandemic”! They were ruthlessly slandered, smeared and de-platformed. To this day, I went 3 pages down in an internet search to find anything positive about them! Here is a story that vindicates them and lists the REAL “Disinformation Dozen” including the likes of Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, YOUTUBE, etc.

The White House took the report and used it to pressure Big Tech to suppress alleged misinformation and disinformation.

Center for Countering Digital Hate report on “the Disinformation Dozen”.

Who and what is the Center for Countering Digital Hate?

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the far-left British nonprofit currently waging a campaign of pressure against Facebook to force the social media giant to clamp down further against conservative media, is backed by a shadowy Swiss investment group that is funding communist China’s bid for global dominance.

The foundation funds a wide variety of left-wing causes, including efforts opposing the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, voter registration and mobilization efforts for Democrat-leaning demographic groups, and a broad spread of left-wing environmental groups.

It is also funding communist China’s bid for dominance over global trade networks.

The White House ACTUALLY took marching orders from THIS group!

Proof the 2020 Presidential Election was rigged

Among other verifiable facts, the FBI manipulated the 2020 Presidential election by calling the Hunter Biden laptop “Russian disinformation” and manipulated social media platforms to censor information about it:

Minds💡 @minds

BREAKING: Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan that Facebook algorithmically censored the Hunter Biden laptop story for 7 days based on a general request from the FBI to restrict election misinformation.

Twitter, based on a similar FBI request to restrict election information, actually banned the New York Post for breaking the story baselessly charging that “hacked materials” were used.

Alex Berenson proved Twitter banned him on orders from the White House.

Prior to the 2022 Midterm, Biden actually declared war on almost half the American population

Joe Biden's Philadelphia speech was an official Presidential address to the nation, which means the U.S. government OFFICIALLY declared war on almost half the citizens in the country and his probable Presidential opponent, who are a threat to America because their political beliefs differ from his! That despite documentation of Democrats questioning results of at least 150 elections, the questioning of the increasingly suspect 2020 Presidential election somehow makes you a treasonous insurrectionist. The most vile and abominable address of any President in history!

Look familiar?

A Scene from the movie “V for Vendetta”.

CNN, obviously still the Clinton News Network, doctoring up the background so it doesn't look so Big Brother:

Regarding the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances:

Image from the “violent Jan. 6, 2021 Insurrection”

@bennyjohnson / X screen shot© The Western Journal

Image from the “peaceful protests” during the George Floyd riots, where 25 people were killed with thousands injured, including 2,035 law enforcement officers and more than $2 BILLION in property damage.

Which protesters do you think were arrested?

And are STILL being investigated and arrested by the FBI!

Conservative American Siaka Massaquoi was arrested by armed FBI agents on Nov 30th, 2023, at the airport while returning home with his pregnant wife. His apartment was raided by over 20 armed FBI agents on June 10, 2021 because he was identified peacefully walking through the Capital on Jan. 6, 2021.

It's all about the spectacle. They don't like who you support and what you think so they put on “the spectacle.” - Siaka Massaquoi

Remember when parents attended school board meeting to protest what their children were being taught? The Education Secretary actually solicited a letter from the National School Board Association to take back to the White House to get the Department of Justice to call them domestic terrorists!

You do know that the Biden administration declared “White supremacy” the greatest threat to America? Not the more than ten million illegals allowed in since 2021, including those from enemies of the U.S.

Next: The step by step “Transition Integrity Project” that rigged the 2020 Presidential election and the new plan to rig the 2024 Presidential election

Without elections being conducted in a fair fashion, your right to vote for the representatives you choose to serve “We the People” in the government we created is worthless, and your First Amendment rights will continue to be violated.

In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech; a thing terrible to publick traytors.- Benjamin Franklin, Dogwood Papers, written by Franklin in 1722, at the age of sixteen