Talking Freely Too Much, Part I

ITS A TOSS UP which of our cherished freedom's American's cherish the most. in the running are the first and second amendments, which guarantee the freedom of speech, religion, and guns. Equally important is the freedom of assembly, to gather together peacefully, about which we don't seem to make nearly as much noise. In a sense, it is ironic that we cherish any of these freedoms at all, since they were not included in the original constitution, and James Madison firmly believed that it would be useless to add them later as amendments. Once the constitution had been ordained by congress and presented to the people in its original form, Madison considered it unnecessary and useless to start amending it, to included freedoms and rights not originally enumerated. he believed that the original version would become ingrained in people's hearts and minds, and that no matter what amendments were added through the years, they would probably be ignored and disrespected by government and the people alike. Little did he know. it turned out that all twenty seven amendments added since 1797 have been added only after tremendous controversy, wrangling, and haggling, and that every single one of them has in fact received a great deal of attention from everyone concerned. Madison was a bad prognosticator all the way around, it turned out. he thought his constitution would be replaced by a better one within his own lifetime, and, within five years after the document's ratification, he regretted it, and believed it had already failed. His plan was to prevent almost all citizens from having any real political power, a fact which is obvious when you read the constitution. He not only didn't trust ninety nine percent of us to vote, he didn't think we the people were even remotely capable of choosing our own president, again, as clearly indicated by the constitution. Read it and wee. Or rather, read it and weep. you suspect that very few Americans have ever done this, considering how free they seem to think the constitution makes us, rather than restricts us. It almost seems a miracle that speech, guns, religion, and assembly are so well protected, given our lack of any real power otherwise. assembly, we seem to take for granted, maybe because of the sheer umber of sporting and other events we frequently attend, or maybe because other than entertainment, most Americans don't give a fig about getting together with other Americans anyway. We, conservatives, make so much fuss about guns and religion, always paranoically yelling about how everyone in the neighborhood and the government is constantly trying to take them away from us, that it is rather obvious that these freedoms are utmost in the mind of the average American conservative. As if the tens of millions of guns and churches in America were somehow threatened. A far greater threat is what religious and gun fanatics use their guns and  Bibles for, but that's another story. Guns and religion are safe. So is speech. Maybe too safe.