45 Words

     Perhaps the most important 45 words in the American idiom are the words of the First Amendment. 
    
     "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peacefully to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

     Beautiful words, aren't they?

     This blog was planned for Freedom of Speech Week, but my computer didn't allow that to happen. Better to be thwarted by a machine than by the government, I guess.

     I believe Freedom of Speech Week should be celebrated with, well, ok, maybe not fireworks, but how about church bells. But mostly, of course, with speech. 

     I think every school should have an assembly, presented by the students. They should write skits and do stand-up all about what they are allowed to say. The assemblies should include debates on tough, controversial issues. Simulated classroom discussions on hard topics. The kids should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. 

    Young people all over the country should talk, write, petition and assemble. Just because they can. 

    Eighth graders should be the ones to coordinate all this as part of their civics classes. 

    The grownups in their lives also need to learn a few lessons. they need to learn to get over their aversion to controversy when it comes to kids. And, they really need to get over knee-jerk political correctness. 

    They need to watch their kids learning to express their views without anger. Learning to argue and raise their voices in passion without getting personal. to separate views from personality. Lessons obviously some adults never learned. 

     Kids are creative. Left to their own devices, they can probably come up with something better than their elders could even imagine.