Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I hope that whatever you've got planned for today or tomorrow or even next week, that it goes well. That in spite of the challenges that you may face or the trials that you may be going through, that you can take the bull by the horns and use these trials or challenges as stepping stones to greater things in your life. Because truly the things in life that matter most are the things that we choose to define ourselves by. None of us should choose to define ourselves by our worst day compared to somebody's best day. But sometimes, because of social media, we tend to look at people at their best or what we think is their best, what we're seeing on their social media accounts, and we think, wow, this person has got it made, their life is a fairy tale. Well, that's not true. We none of us uh live a fairy tale life. And when if we start to look at the lives of other people and compare those lives to our own, then sure, we're probably going to be disappointed. But we shouldn't do that. We should compare ourselves to the best self that we were yesterday, and perhaps today try to be a better version of ourselves. At least that's the way I see it, anyway. Today I'm going to talk about something that to me, at least it seems to me anyway, seems to be an ongoing debate in our country, and it has to do with speech. So I'd I guess start off by asking the question, can we say whatever we want whenever we want? Some people may say, well, sure, that's what free speech is all about. And other people may say, Well, no, not really. So I come down in the camp of the no not really side, and let me explain. When I was going to school, grade school particularly, even in high school, when the subject of speech came up, the go-to was you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, especially when there's no fire. And the reason for that is quite clear, because if someone were to yell fire in a crowded theater and started running out of the theater and caused mass pandemonium, then the situation could potentially unfold into a nightmarish scene where people are getting trampled to death because they think there's a fire somewhere in the building. It seems obvious that if there is actually a fire and someone is trying to do all they can, or a lot of people are trying to do all they can to notify people, most people are gonna know and they're gonna try to get out of there quick. And even at that point in time, there is gonna be mass hysteria because that's how we are as human beings. It's uh fight or flight. We look out for number one, we want to save our own hides. And yeah, that's probably another story, but I'm not gonna go into that today. The bottom line when it comes to speech is that we can't just say whatever we want, because it could potentially lead to injury or even death of other people. And I think we can all agree that that is definitely not a part of speech when it comes to the First Amendment. All right, so what about the kind of everyday speech that we are able to participate in that uh doesn't lead to potential injury of other people or even the death of other people? And to be sure, what I'm saying about when I talk about injury, I'm talking about physically, of course. Now, there are things that people say on a daily basis that may be construed by other people to be injurious, whether that's mentally or emotionally, but that's not the primary focus today. However, I do understand that sometimes people get their feelings hurt because of the things that other people say. But when you compare getting your feelings hurt to potentially being physically injured or losing your life, we have to keep a proper perspective when it comes to these kinds of things, in my opinion. We have something called the Bill of Rights, which is part of our Constitution. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights says this 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. Frankly, this is where the rest of the podcast is going to center on, and that is this idea that Congress shall make no law. If we look at the word shall, it's an expression of something that is mandatory. So, in other words, it's mandatory that Congress shall not make a law to establish a state religion or any other religion or abridge these other freedoms that we enjoy because of the First Amendment. And let me just sort of make a caveat here, and that is I understand the epistemological argument that some may put forth regarding this word shall. I mean, epistemology and epistemological is the study or theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge. And in my opinion, there are those who want to try to manipulate the way a word should be used now compared to say the 18th or 17th century or some time previous to our own. But in my view, that's not a valid argument for overturning the meaning of something, particularly something from the Constitution. So let's look at what Congress cannot do with respect to speech. They cannot abridge, or in other words, diminish or deprive or reduce in scope someone's right to speech. They cannot make a law that establishes a religion that the rest of us have to be subservient to. And finally, Congress cannot abridge the freedom of the press, and they cannot keep the people from peaceably assembling and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment, then, is dealing with what Congress cannot do, which is that they shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. This is referred to as the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. And the second is that they cannot prohibit the free exercise thereof, which is the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. To me, then the question becomes what do we the people do in regards to this part of the First Amendment? Now, naturally, one of the things that we can do and we should do is we should have a sort of common courtesy to other people, particularly those whose speech may differ from our own, but we should respect their right to speak their mind. Unless we're a member of Congress, then it's a different story. But I'm talking about people who are everyday citizens who are not members of Congress and who are not charged with uh making law or amending the current law. So we the people often operate in what we refer to as a common law. And those are things that we've just come to accept as common, even though there's not a statute that regulates our personal behavior. Because in reality, we really don't need one. What does it cost any of us to be respectful, to be friendly, to have courtesy for other people? Do we really need a law for that kind of stuff? I don't think so. But here are a couple of expressions that we've all heard the so-called hate speech, or speech that is classified as offensive. Personally, I believe this is dangerous ground to be walking on because both hate speech, so-called, and speech that is uh classified as offensive are two very subjective terms because what may be offensive uh to you conversely uh may not be offensive to me. In my humble opinion, the use of these terms, such as hate speech or speech that is offensive or classified to be offensive by some people, is an attempt to silence people, to silence a viewpoint that may be perceived by some people to be unacceptable. But the last I checked, the First Amendment doesn't talk about speech that is quote unquote unacceptable. I mean, it's clear to me that we have a problem in our society when there are social uh public displays of people who are bitterly opposed to one another just because they have a different philosophy, a different ideology. This, too, my friends, is dangerous ground to be on when groups of people who clearly oppose each other with respect to ideology or politics or whatever it is, have their discussions, if you want to call them that, but have their uh talking with one another devolve into something physical where people are actually getting injured and in some cases even losing their lives because of disagreements. I mean, this is not the way it's supposed to be. We have to figure out a way to disagree with one another without being disrespectful or hateful to one another. I don't think we want to have Congress establish laws that govern personal behavior, such as common courtesy and being respectful and friendly. But if they did, there'd be a lot of people hauled off to jail or at least have some sort of criminal record because they've broken the law of being nice. Wow. Well, I certainly don't want that, and I don't think the rest of you would want that either. Now, I want to switch gears to the religion aspect of the First Amendment, since that is a very big piece of the First Amendment. And let me just say that I am not a lawyer, so I don't know all of the nuances of the law and all of the things that lawyers are trained to recognize with respect to the law. But what I am is a concerned citizen, and I think we should all be concerned when it comes to our rights of religion and speech and so forth. In 1962, in a case called Engel versus Vital, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that a non-denominational prayer in a public school violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This case was from New York State, and I accessed information from U.S.courts.gov in case you're wondering where I'm getting this information from. In any case, the majority ruled that school-sponsored prayer violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. And the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, again, says, quote, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Clearly, up until the time of this case, and ever since then, to my knowledge, Congress has not made any laws with respect to an establishment of a religion. So I simply want to ask the question: how can one violate an establishment clause where there's been no law created in the first place? Are we putting more emphasis in the law or are we putting greater emphasis on a particular clause in the Constitution? That's what I want to know. In a concurring opinion with the majority, a Justice Douglas actually argued that any type of public promotion of religion, including giving financial aid to religious schools, violates the establishment clause. Again, how is it a violation of the establishment clause when in the clause itself says that Congress shall make no law? That's the clause. Well, Congress hasn't made a law to establish a certain religion or to prohibit the free exercise thereof. However, some of you and myself included might be led to believe that this was a way for the government, aka the Supreme Court, to make a ruling against having a non-denominational prayer in a school without the interference of Congress making a law in the first place. And in this case of Ingel versus Vital, there was one dissenting opinion, one justice who said, Nope, I don't agree with the majority. It was a six to one ruling. And for this, I'm going to read from the actual document, which is found on UScourts.gov. It says, quote, Justice Stewart argued in his dissent that the establishment clause was only meant to prohibit the establishment of a state-sponsored church such as the Church of England and not prohibit all types of government involvement with religion. In particular, he found that the non-denominational nature of the prayer and the absentee provision removed constitutional challenges. One is referred to as Abington School District versus Schimp in 1963. And I'm going to read from the article. It says, quote, citing Ingle, the court held that school-sponsored Bible reading constituted government endorsement of a particular religion and thus violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The other case was a case that was decided in the year 2000, and this was Santa Fe Independent School District versus Doe. The case had to do with students not using the school's loudspeaker system to offer a student-led or a student-initiated prayer. And the three students who brought the case sued the school, arguing that the prayers violated, here again, the establishment clause of the First Amendment. And the court then held that this action was school-sponsored prayer because the loudspeakers that the students used for their invocations were owned by the school. But once again, I'm going to go back to the fact that the establishment clause itself is that Congress will make no law establishing a religion. In other words, it's not a matter of law because there's been no law created. It seems to me in the cases that I've cited from the Supreme Court that they have ruled against having a non-denominational prayer or a scripture reading at school, and that they used the First Amendment's establishment clause as the basis for that decision or for those decisions. I would also add, too, that I'm aware of other cases that do allow religious groups to meet on school property to read scripture or have religious discussion so long as it's after hours. Furthermore, there is the Equal Access Act, which I think Congress passed in 1984. The essence of it is that it was passed by Congress to ensure that any school that receives federal funds can't prevent religious or other groups from using school property after hours. And that seems reasonable to me. The bottom line in all of this for me is that the law states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor can it abridge the freedom of speech. Nevertheless, it seems that the government has figured out how to restrict the religious liberties that we have that are guaranteed by the Constitution, and that we have the freedom to exercise our religious beliefs in the way that we see fit. I wonder if you see it that way too. In any case, ladies and gentlemen, I hope the time that you spent listening today has motivated you to go and do a little research on your own, to maybe learn more about these decisions by the courts and what our Constitution and the Bill of Rights actually say and what it means to you as an individual. And on that note, the positive thought that I want to leave with you today comes from John Adams, who said this quote, our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. End a quote. With that, make it a great day, make it a great night, make it a great week. And remember, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.