For true equality among people as government, the key issue is restoring checks and balances in exercising these powers. Similar to three government branches, the First Amendment includes free exercise of religion, free speech and free press, all with respect to the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition. Where equal consent and due process are protected – using mediation to resolve conflicts by consensus – everyone’s rights to freedom, justice, peace and security are represented. However, when anyone in government, media or corporations abuses greater collective influence than individual citizens to impose biased interpretations, policy, or action – favoring private interests over public consent – the balance of powers is destroyed.

Following historic progression – where the Bill of Rights originally applied to Congress, before protection of laws was extended to State governments, and later to public facilities and federally-funded institutions – the challenge today is holding citizens and corporations equally responsible as government for respecting basic rights in order to invoke them: in keeping with Constitutional checks and balances, consent of the governed, and equal protection of the laws.

If we are to be really free, then we have to have the right to express ourselves. The First Amendment grants Americans the right to express themselves in all legal ways possible. Although the First Amendment does not give people the right to physically hurt one another, it does give people the right to respond to people who they feel have wronged them in some way, including the President and other powerful and influential people in America.

The First Amendment gives Americans the right to speak out against corruption, injustices, discrimination, racism, white supremacy, Jim and Jane Crow, sexism, bigotry, inequality, and much more. This Amendment allows those who have been historically invisible to be made visible. It has given the voiceless, powerless, and oppressed a reason to live and experience life to its fullest.

This Amendment was powerful enough to provide a man who would have once been considered property the freedom to express that he wanted to become President of the United States: Barack H. Obama. This Amendment gave us all a real voice!

We are AMERICANS…
We are also free to vote our conscience…and I am free right now to say CAPITALISM ALONE IS EVIL…SOCIALISM plus some form of capitalism would serve our country more realistically…. to prevent the greedy from continuing to wipe the middle class off the face of the earth. AMEN.

Happy, happy he who’s a-trampin’ along
(Now sing fair, my beautiful country!)
With a pack on his back and his heart for a map
(O how fine, to be wandering free!)
A crag far above, a bluff ‘gainst the blue
Is beckoning someone to see
Into some distant valley or canyon so steep
I suppose it’ll have to be me
I suppose it’ll have to be me. . .

Happy, happy he who hears nature’s sweet words
From the brook and the rustling trees
Saying, “Come lay your head on my soft grassy bed
And forget all your difficulties
Let sunbeams remind you that your aches are few
Your troubles are tiny, you’ll see
Just listen awhile now to my point of view
And soon I am sure you’ll agree,
And soon I am sure you’ll agree.”

Happy, happy he who’s a-trampin’ along
(Now sing fair, my beautiful country!)
With a pack on his back and his heart for a map
(O how fine, to be wandering free!)
Down into the valley and up to the crest
It’s sharing wild blueberries that I love best
And here is a secret I learned from a friend:
The best ones are just ’round the bend,
The best ones are just ’round the bend. . .

Happy, happy he who was born to be free
(O sing proud, my beautiful country!)
The mountains are high and the valleys are wide
But you know, they all belong to me. . .
A story is told, full of beauty, and old
By our Mother, the earth, wind, and sea
Who listens will hear her calling him home
I suppose it’ll have to be me
I suppose it’ll have to be me
O sing out, my beautiful country!

The freedom to speak without fear of persecution is as Unalienable as the right to Life or Liberty, and is the first line of defense against the tyrannical tendencies of government.

I’d suggest that exercising our freedom of speech responsibly requires much more than posting whatever we think. It requires doing some real research when we post on a serious topic as well as the checking of facts both when we post and when we read. It requires differentiating between opinion and fact, even if it weakens our position, and avoiding exaggeration for argument’s sake. It requires taking some time not only to read other viewpoints but to actually consider them, maybe even referencing them in our posts. It means avoiding name-calling and stereotypes … actually rising above the Rush Limbaughs and Keith Olbermanns of the world. It means not only respecting the right of others to express differing opinions but being open to the possibility that their argument has some merit. None of this is guaranteed by the First Amendment but all of it, it would seem to me, is crucial to its survival.

“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.”

Our right to worship without government interference or persecution is the fundamental freedom to choose our core principles, which is the governance of self. Not by compulsion externally (organized religion by government), but instead based on personal conviction. This freedom is the linchpin to the other four—one cannot be free publicly if they are not free personally.

Our right to speak freely enables active and authentic participation in the citizenry as a whole. This allows agreement or disagreement in the discourse of governance, which can only be forthright so long as those governing cannot interfere.

Freedom of the press is an organized corporate voice, empowering the right of free speech. This freedom carries the weight of the collective right to agree or disagree, as well as giving voice to the individual—thus making government answerable to the people.

Peaceful assembly is the ability to take freedom of speech to the public forum, whether in protest or proclamation. This right brings balance to the freedom of the press by empowering rights of speech without depending on the will of the press, or its editors.

Petitioning the Government is a citizen’s right to hold accountable those who govern, by political or legal means. A government constrained by the law governs more aptly than one operating above of the law.

We cannot overlook that the 1st Amendment rights come with inherent responsibility. These rights expressly limit government; however, personal freedom must not become an excuse for self-indulgence. As citizens and a nation, we are only as free as we take responsibility for being so.

I am free to say what I want within legal bounds.

I can assemble peacefully where I want with whomever I want, in order to talk about what we want to talk about. Sometimes with placards. Sometimes with flashmobs. Sometimes with video cam ready to catch brutality.

I am free to complain about my sad, sinking government, without fear of punishment.

I am free to blog.