A Call to Defend and Preserve the First Amendment
“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”.
This is the entire First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Our Founding Fathers understood how important freedom of speech and freedom of the press is to a free country. They understood this not only because of their personal experiences with the Crown, but also from their deep study of history. The Founding Fathers faced possible execution for what they said because opposition to the king was not allowed. If citizens are not allowed to think and express their thoughts, a nation is not free.
Think about it. Opposition to the king (or ruler of the time) was not allowed. Does it seen as if we have almost gone back to that time? If you are not 110% in agreement with whatever the left is doing at this moment, you are targeted as a racist white supremacist. Take Elon Musk as an example. Musk is in the process of buying Twitter with the intent of promoting and ensuring free speech for everyone on the platform, regardless of political affiliation. He also just announced that, after watching the Democrat party “become the party of division & hate”, he can no longer support it and will be voting Republican in the 2022 midterms. Isn’t it telling that the CEO and founder of Tesla (an electric car company) has left the party of the “Green New Deal” because of its suppression of free speech and intolerance for diverse points of view? The self-made wealthiest man on earth who makes electric cars for a living and is African American (yes, born and raised in South Africa and now an American!) will be voting Republican this November and has been cast out by the Democrat party and the media. Oh, the irony!
On a more ominous level, the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, appropriately nicknamed the ‘Ministry of Truth’ from George Orwell’s book 1984 by opposers of this board, is a direct attack on citizens’ speech, i.e., the First Amendment. The goal of this Ministry of Truth is to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security”. While nobody likes misinformation, who decides what is misinformation? The simple answer is nobody should be allowed to set a single narrative for a free society and nation. Debate should be alive and rigorous allowing truth to surface. While the media has long been deciding what is misinformation and intensely so for the past six years, it is not an established arm of the federal government.
Nina Jankowicz was chosen to head the Ministry of Truth. Jankowicz, a liberal fact-checker (I thought that was a made-up job, but apparently it’s a real thing) who helped to cover up Hunter Biden’s laptop story during the 2020 election cycle. Jankowicz played a role pushing the Trump Russia Collusion hoax in 2016 out to the media. She also posted a video of herself singing about fact-checking on TikTok, in which she called some views or information held by conservatives disinformation. Changing the lyrics to a Mary Poppins song and then singing it on TikTok is silliness and not professional in any way. Ever. Secondly, what happened to the tolerance liberals always preached? Actually, nothing happened to it. It is who it’s granted to – tolerance for them, Ministry of Truth for us.
Thankfully, the American people recognized the threat to the First Amendment posed by the Disinformation Governance Board and responded across the land. The Ministry of Truth was the headline of conservative news outlets for weeks. Millions took to social media and and contacted their legislators to express their outrage. The Ministry has been put on hold, and Nina Jankowicz has resigned. However, the battle is not over. The Department of Homeland Security announced they have appointed former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy General Jamie Gorelick to advise DHS on how they “can garner public trust surrounding its disinformation efforts”. While Chertoff and Gorelick will not be working under the Disinformation Governance Board’s title, their work sounds a lot like what the Board’s mission was. If the government has the audacity to do this, what is next? This is a direct assault on the First Amendment. This obvious violation of our First Amendment rights cannot be allowed. This shows the current government and bureaucracy lack respect for Americans’ constitutional rights. The Executive and Congressional branches think they know best, but We the People actually do and their paychecks come from our pocketbooks, i.e., our taxes. Never forget that they govern by our consent.
The parallels between Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and our world today are very disturbing. In Huxley’s classic, society is almost always high on drugs, free sex is the norm, children are indoctrinated from birth, and abortion is rampant. Also, those who marry for life and have children are called barbarians and are separated from “decent society”. Instead of nation states, the world is a global nation. You cannot go anywhere to escape its laws and regulations. And that’s just the beginning of a radical and tyrannical power structure with control over everything we do and how we live. Who would want to live in a Brave New World? I don’t. Such a world is predictably godless, miserable and absent of independent thought and action, opposite to the America we know.
The Founding Fathers knew how important free speech is to a free nation because they were being forced to live without freedom of speech. They knew what it was like to be censored. It was dangerous and will become increasingly so today if conservatives do not stand up and fight to protect our First Amendment liberties. Benjamin Franklin said, “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech”. The establishment is trying but, God willing, liberty will prevail for future generations by the actions of all good citizens and patriots of this generation.
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Ellie Fromm is currently serving at The Prickly Pear as a Journalism Intern. Ms. Fromm is entering her senior year of high school and has been home schooled since preschool.
