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What Freedom Do You Speak of?

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What Freedom do you speak of? “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.” (The First Amendment) In 1787 when the Constitution was proposed people expressed the concern that the document failed to specify the fundamental rights of the people that would be immune from assault by federal officials. We knew not only from the study of history but also from personal experience, that the tendency of governments throughout history was to abuse their powers, especially in times of emergency. The people feared that the federal government would somehow break out of the original Constitution’s enumerated powers straitjacket and misuse its powers to violate the fundamental rights it was charged with protecting. The enumeration of those rights and the express restrictions on government power in the Bill of Rights were to ensure that this didn’t happen. The first thing to notice here is that, contrary to popular opinion, this amendment does not give people the rights to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The Constitution does not give people any rights whatsoever, so this is why I value no freedom most. Instead, it operates as a restriction on the interference with rights, rights that pre-exist both the government and the Constitution. In other words, the reason that the Constitution called the federal government into existence was to protect the exercise of pre-existing, fundamental rights. The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to ensure that the government didn’t use such power to infringe or even destroy such rights. The second principle to

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