That's In My Constitution, Right? Absolute Freedom of Speech and God Almighty

[Razor]

I was going to write up a post about the supposed "tax bomb" that Fox News is crying about lately. It'll add a trillion dollars to the government rolls by allowing taxes on the top 3% wage earners revert to Regan era levels. Doesn't seem bad, right? But then I looked into it...there's another huge tax roll-back that is humongous and will effect us all. Instead of getting depressing, I figure I'd just look at the Constitution a bit. It's not like it's followed anymore anyway.

Absolute Freedom of Speech

The 1st Amendment. Word for word, I say:

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.

Congress shall not, under any circumstances, circumvent our right to freedom of speech. Sure, the Alien and Sedition Acts under President John Adams shit all over this very Amendment no more than 12 years after its adoption...but we'll breeze past that.

No we won't. President Adams was a bitch.

However, something quite perplexing has started to occur in our American minds. Something about absolute freedom of speech and press. It's quite bizarre.

Considering the following scenario:

Prima: GENERIC RACIST COMMENT. RAGE RAGE RAGE

Secunda: Yeah, I'm a mod on this here forum. That totally can't stand. *Delete*

Prima: RAGE FIRST AMENDMENT RAGE RAGE RAGE

Wait...what? Is Secunda a Congressman, and is he not deleting the post, but rather passing a law in Congress that is expressly designed to curb Prima's rights?

Of course not. But for some reason, Americans are all over this idea. I'll never know why. You can see it on every Yahoo! News Article ever written. Some guy who has a raging conspira-boner over Obama not being an American will always close out his comment with "But these nazi Yahoo! comment editors will delete my comment because the First Amendment is dead!"

Umm...yeah man. You're totally right.

God

Oh yeah. The big man upstairs for most in the world, the imaginary friend of those majority for others, and the mystery force that is sorta creepy for that many more.

But wait. While we all know that the Constitution promises Freedom of Religion, God has got to be in there, right? I mean come on. They were Christians and they were founding a country under God. It's in our Pledge of Allegiance.

Wrong.

First of all, the "under God" part of our Pledge of Allegiance was added...in the 80's. It's why you can hear the obvious pause between "one nation" and "indivisible." They sorta sandwiched it in.

Second of all, the words "God" or any other usage thereof are no where in the Constitution. No where.

Alright, there is one exception. In the date. It's "Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." But that's how people told each other the date on important papers back then. Like us using B.C. and B.C.E. today on scientific papers. They used "year of our Lord."

Don't get this wrong. I'm not saying the absence of the word "God" means the Founding Fathers weren't spiritual. Nearly all (if not all) were religious, Christian people. Check out Wikipedia for the exact religious preferences. I know for a fact that Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson were Deists. But others were Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and the like.

That mix actually helps my point whenever I finally get around to it. The Founding Fathers omitted "God" or any mention from the Constitution for one large, glaring reason. They believed the government should not get mixed up in such matters.

Anyway, point of the thread.

Do you agree with the people who argue for absolute freedom of speech? Should any American be able to speak his mind on any American message board or open forum without anyone clicking away on the edit button?

Should we glean the same message I glean from the absence of God in the Constitution? Or was it just an unfortunate omission? Should we allow God to become a larger part of the United States Government?

Stake your claim.

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

Er, no, the entire point of the "Freedom of Speech" part of the Constitution is that there can be no official law limiting freedom of speech. Someone's post being deleted off of a privately-owned forum doesn't limit someone's freedom. You don't go to jail if your post gets deleted. People who argue over the constitution in the complaint thread were probably shit posters to begin with.

That's like breaking into someone's house, and refusing to leave, or robbing a bank, because "it's a free country."

 

[Hawkeye]

I think saying that whole First Amendment song and dance is for people who know they've gone too far but don't know how to quit.It's a cop out to keep people from realizing that they need to regulate their behavior in public places,be it a poster on this forum,someone commenting negatively on Obama, or any Youtube user with an opinion for that matter. Sure the 1st amendment grants you freedom of speech,but I'm almost positive the founding fathers assumed their posterity would be a bit more reasonable with its use.They assumed wrong.

 

[Ferbian]

It really depends to what extend that there's an entire freedom of speech. I there's always some kind of limit that should be set. For example on this forum we're not allowed to openly flame each other on the parts of the forum where the rules states such. In that manner the rules should come above what the concept of freedom of speech should be allowed.

Basically if we allowed complete freedom of speech on this forum for example, it would create a lot of awful situations, we'd have people who get into open grudge conversations on the forum, as well as a lot of spam. It's really in the better for the forum with such rules.

However it doesn't mean that it should be the case for everything. As long as a limitation on freedom of speech is implemented in a manner that actually makes sense then you should be allowed to implement this limitation. However if you can't find a way to make sense of it, then the limitations shouldn't stand. I've said why it makes sense on this forum. But it doesn't mean that in public that it would make sense to be limited in, say television, the radio, books etc. (These might be a stretch, but there sure as hell are some situations where it doesn't make sense).

The rules of this forum so nicely states

These are privately owned forums and it is our judgment as to who can and cannot post here, not yours. Freedom of speech does not apply here at Wrestlezone Forums.

The part about god becoming a part of the constitution. I think it'll be a somewhat hard thing to implement. You cannot expect everybody to follow that specific paragraph in that manner, because not everybody is a religious believer. So in that manner some could be an atheist and wouldn't care to put themselves in a stand towards that part of the constitution.

But sure there's all right in having a freedom of religion. But (While I don't specifically know what the constitution states) if the freedom of religion is in the constitution, it doesn't necessarily need to state "god" in it. Because America is a country of many religions and many races, so to state "god" could be considered offensive to a religious guy of middle-eastern background. Or a Buddhist / Hindu.

 

[Xemmy]

I think saying that whole First Amendment song and dance is for people who know they've gone too far but don't know how to quit.It's a cop out to keep people from realizing that they need to regulate their behavior in public places,be it a poster on this forum,someone commenting negatively on Obama, or any Youtube user with an opinion for that matter. Sure the 1st amendment grants you freedom of speech,but I'm almost positive the founding fathers assumed their posterity would be a bit more reasonable with its use.They assumed wrong.

That's the price for living in a country with Freedom Of Speech. Personally I'd rather pay the piper than go to a country than live in a country that doesn't have that amendment.

Having God in American Government is a big "HELL NO!".

We were specifically designed to be a secular nation. That's where the Freedom of Religion idea came from anyways. When you mix Church and State bad things happen.

 

[Kenny Powers]

With the first amendment people can speak freely about their opinions, but it is always a double edged sword. Politicians and government officials are fired for saying "racist" comments even if they didn't speak them. People and Politicians use the name of God too much when it comes to America. America is a christian nation founded by christian principles of the founding fathers is totally untrue. There is a separation of church and state for a reason, but the constitution always comes back to God.

People have the right to say anything, but should be held accountable for their actions. An example would be if someone is harassing someone online or in person. Sometimes people take not only God out of proportion but free speech in general. I'm not religious, but I have no problem with the word God being used. I just think it is used too much to emphasize things that don't need to be.

 

[Davi323]

Razor, before you spout off, please get your facts right. Under God wasn't added in the 80s, it was added in 1954. You were only off by 3 decades...

You start by bitching about taxes, but the rest of your post has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Freedom of Speech is not, nor ever has been absolute. What the amendment was intended as was a response to the relationship between the british throne and the british press. The Amendment sought to ensure that the press could fairly and accurately report the goings on in the government, without fear of the information being silenced. Freedom of religion means there can't be an official "State" religion...also a reaction to Great Britain. It means if you are a Christian, be a christian, the state won't persecute you for it. Jew? Fine. Wiccan? Fine. Muslim? Fine...just don't be a terrorist. It means that you are free to practice your religion without government interference.

However, neither Amendment does not, nor ever has applied to private endeavors. Mods at wrestlezone.com are perfectly within their Constitutional rights to ban someone who violates the rules of the forum. They are perfectly within their rights to tell you that spamming isn't allowed, they are perfectly within their rights to whatever the fucking hell they choose to. This is a private forum. This isn't public space. The first Amendment is not a "FUCK YOU I CAN SAY WHATEVER THE FUCK I FUCKING WANT" get out of jail free card. It sounds to me like your entire post is nothing but bitching about how a mod deleted one of your posts.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

There is no such thing as "absolute Freedom of Speech". It may have existed at one time, but not anymore. There are numerous legal technicalities in which speech isn't considered to be sacred or protected. Lemme give you an example of a hypothetical situation:

Let's say that Bubba The Love Sponge is on his radio show ranting and raving about this as shock jocks will do. Let's say that a caller calls in and asks him about his experience in TNA and the he really starts up. Let's say that Bubba eventually says something along the lines of "I'd love for someone to take a baseball bat and go upside that money mark bitch's head". Suppose, within a 24 hour period, someone goes out and does exactly that, claiming they got the idea from listening to Bubba and they're a huge fan of the show. Now on the surface, was Bubba being serious? Did he seriously want someone to go out and do that to Dixie Carter? Maybe, maybe not, but you could bet that there'd be an investigation into this. Of course, Bubba would probably say that he was just blowing off some steam, trying to make a callous attempt at humor like shock jocks normally do.

Depending upon how you word your statements, saying certain things can land you in a whole lot of trouble. You have the right to say what you want as long as what you say doesn't encourage someone to out and commit violent acts. If some idiot at a KKK rally screams into a microphone, "I think we should go out here, grab hold of the first ****** we see, tie his black ass to a tree and set him on fire", and then a person or persons that heard that speech goes out and does that very thing, it's not considered to be protected speech. If said KKK speaker were brought up on charges, it'd be up to the district attorney to prove that he wasn't just shooting off his mouth to get his racist buddies riled up, but that he actually thought they should go out and do that. Even if that speaker himself took no part in any actual assault, he'd still be right in the thick of it.

Situations like that can be a nightmare for people to prosecute because establishing what someone's intent is based on things they say is difficult. If someone is convicted or not, your life can pretty much be made into a living hell. Freedom of Speech means you can say anything you want as long as what you say doesn't incite violence upon others.