Guest Post by John W. Whitehead
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”—Thomas Jefferson
If America’s schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students
Take the case of Lucas Hudson.
With all the negative press being written about today’s young people, it’s refreshing to meet a young person who not only knows his rights but is prepared to stand up for them.
Lucas is a smart kid, a valedictorian of his graduating class at the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Fla.
So, when school officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech’s religious references from his graduation speech—in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us—or he would not be speaking at all, Lucas refused to forfeit his rights.
That’s when Lucas’s father turned to The Rutherford Institute for help.
In coming to Lucas’ defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned school officials that their attempts to browbeat Lucas into watering down his graduation speech could expose the school to a First Amendment lawsuit.
Thankfully for Lucas, the school backed down, and he was able to deliver his speech as written.
It doesn’t always work out so well, unfortunately.
Over the course of The Rutherford Institute’s 42-year history, we have defended countless young people who found themselves censored, silenced and denied their basic First Amendment rights, especially when they chose to exercise their rights to free speech and religious freedom.
In case after case, we encounter an appalling level of ignorance on the part of public school officials who mistakenly believe that the law requires anything religious be banned from public schools.
Here’s where government officials get it wrong: while the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense.
People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.
Unfortunately, you can only defend your rights when you know them, and the American people—and those who represent them—are utterly ignorant about their freedoms, history, and how the government is supposed to operate.
As Morris Berman points out in his book Dark Ages America, “70 percent of American adults cannot name their senators or congressmen; more than half don’t know the actual number of senators, and nearly a quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Sixty-three percent cannot name the three branches of government. Other studies reveal that uninformed or undecided voters often vote for the candidate whose name and packaging (e.g., logo) are the most powerful; color is apparently a major factor in their decision.”
More than government corruption and ineptitude, police brutality, terrorism, gun violence, drugs, illegal immigration or any other so-called “danger” that threatens our nation, civic illiteracy may be what finally pushes us over the edge.
As Thomas Jefferson warned, no nation can be both ignorant and free.
Unfortunately, the American people have existed in a technology-laden, entertainment-fueled, perpetual state of cluelessness for so long that civic illiteracy has become the new normal for the citizenry.
In fact, most immigrants who aspire to become citizens know more about national civics than native-born Americans. Surveys indicate that half of native-born Americans couldn’t correctly answer 70% of the civics questions on the U.S. Citizenship test.
Not even the government bureaucrats who are supposed to represent us know much about civics, American history and geography, or the Constitution although they take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution against “enemies foreign and domestic.”
For instance, a couple attempting to get a marriage license was recently forced to prove to a government official that New Mexico is, in fact, one of the 50 states and not a foreign country.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. The government’s purpose is to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.
It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.”
Those who founded this country knew quite well that every citizen must remain vigilant or freedom would be lost. As Thomas Paine recognized, “It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
You have no rights unless you exercise them.
Still, you can’t exercise your rights unless you know what those rights are.
“If Americans do not understand the Constitution and the institutions and processes through which we are governed, we cannot rationally evaluate important legislation and the efforts of our elected officials, nor can we preserve the national unity necessary to meaningfully confront the multiple problems we face today,” warns the Brennan Center in its Civic Literacy Report Card. “Rather, every act of government will be measured only by its individual value or cost, without concern for its larger impact. More and more we will ‘want what we want, and [will be] convinced that the system that is stopping us is wrong, flawed, broken or outmoded.’”
Education precedes action.
As the Brennan Center concludes “America, unlike most of the world’s nations, is not a country defined by blood or belief. America is an idea, or a set of ideas, about freedom and opportunity. It is these ideas that bind us together as Americans and have kept us free, strong, and prosperous. But these ideas do not perpetuate themselves. They must be taught and learned anew with each generation.”
There is a movement underway to require that all public-school students pass the civics portion of the U.S. naturalization test—100 basic facts about U.S. history and civics—before receiving their high-school diploma, and that’s a start.
Lucas Hudson would have passed such a test with flying colors.
On graduation day, Lucas stepped up to the podium and delivered his uncensored valedictorian speech as written, without any interference by school censors.
As Lucas’s father relayed to The Rutherford Institute:
“In the end, Lucas got to give his entire speech the way he wanted to give it, and everybody was paying attention. Nobody got hurt. Nothing bad happened. It was just a young man using the First Amendment rights to speak his mind regarding his personal beliefs. [Lucas] never thought a few sentences in a speech would create such a controversy in his world, but this speech turned into a defining moment for him. He will never be the same after this experience, but this permanent change is a good thing. When it mattered, Lucas stood up for himself, and when those he stood up against tried to push him down, [The Rutherford Institute] came to his aide and backed him up to make it a fair fight. I am comforted to know you are defending the rights of the people. These fights matter. Every time you defend the rights of one person, you defend the rights of every person. You helped my son fight for his rights against the school, and, in doing so, Hillsborough County Public Schools will think twice before infringing on the rights of future students. Your defense of Lucas became an inspiration for the students in his school and sparked a healthy and meaningful debate among the teachers, students, and parents about the value of the First Amendment and the need for limits on government control over our personal beliefs. You are fighting for good and doing important work. Don’t ever stop. Thank you, Rutherford Institute, for being there for my son when he needed you most.”
America needs more freedom fighters like Lucas Hudson and The Rutherford Institute.
It’s up to us.
We have the power to make and break the government.
We the American people—the citizenry—are the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.
We must act—and act responsibly.
A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to make the sacrifices necessary to stay involved.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s our job to keep freedom alive using every nonviolent means available to us.
As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized in a speech delivered on December 5, 1955, just four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus: “Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”
Know your rights. Exercise your rights. Defend your rights. If not, you will lose them.
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AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE is another great resource that is well versed in this garbage , and has a winning track record.
Victory for ACLJ Client, as Court Finds That Teacher Is No Longer Barred From Praying in the Presence of Studentsaclj.org
Jay Sekulow & crew.
How Many Times Has the US Officially Declared War? | HISTORY
By design:
Americans couldn’t correctly answer 70% of the civics questions on the U.S. Citizenship test
They took civics out of schools. The thirty percent than can answer the questions are probably older and had civics courses. Our school did in Jr. HIgh. 1968-1969
The three branches of government are the bribe takers, the pedophiles, and the totalitarians.
And the fourth is the Jew puppet masters.
That would be the branch controlling the other three branches.
That is not an actual branch, just the paymaster.
Money, television, and bullshit. ~ P. J. O’Rourke
There’s really only one part of government, though: mass acquiescence to it. Without that, it evaporates.
“When enough people understand reality, tyrants can literally be ignored out of existence. They can’t ever be voted out of existence.”― Larken Rose
“63% cannot name the three branches of government”?
My suspicion is that even fewer of the readers here at TBP can name them correctly. Think you remember them? WRONG!
Here they are:
1) Military-Industrial Complex
2) Central Intelligence Agency
3) Israel
How many did you know?
You forgot about Fed Reserve lapdog Big Corporation!
The real government who pays the bribes to them all and pulls their strings.
They all obsequeously bow to Mammon. (Satan)
WAKEY WAKEY!
The American people only care about gas prices, food prices, taxes and their 401K. They are not interested in constitutional matters or even human rights unless it directly affects them. If it affects you they don’t care. We are a nation of self centered pricks with few exceptions.
Evidence: the past 4 years.
It goes back to the Greatest Generation. Those that survived were the most politically selfish generation in history, they started all this handout stuff.
That would be crypto Jew FDR. He also armed Stalin for global scale industrialized war while the central banking created Depression raged and millions starved. The Greatest de-Generation helped destroy central banking bypassing, White nationalism. Whilst the Allies perpetrated true genocide upon Germany and even Soviet occupied Eastern Europe.
To this day, none here nor anywhere else can direct the audience to a National Socialist gas chamber which would facilitate human euthanasia. If anyone thinks they can prove me wrong feel free to try.
At least five decades too late…..the teachers have been given over to a debased mind…..scrubbed of true faith,humans are a blown up ballon let go ……
Yeah, fight back. Secede:
.
More on the same by this author:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/kirkpatrick-sale/?ptype=article
We need a general strike on July 11.
Get up, stand up? What is it with this site posting Commie slogans?
As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized in a speech delivered on December 5, 1955, just four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus: “Democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.”- You can disregard the rest of the article that rests on platitudes and is divorced from reality. As some know, but most are oblivious to the fact that “poor negro”
Rosa Parks was a paid communist agent that was instructed to cause a disturbance in order to promote the communist agenda of “civil rights.” MLK was a known womanizer and also had ties to groups that would be considered against American interests.
Of course, the American sheeple jumped on the bandwagon and supported the anti-Christ
Jews sponsoring the civil rights legislation, as well as the immigration bills that endorsed the flood of immigrants that have overwhelmed our borders presently.
Instead of supporting national interests in keeping America a White, Christian nation, a majority of ignorant souls saw fit to assist in the destruction of our formerly great nation and celebrate the shithole that it has now become.
Great job Morons! It’s true that you just can’t fix stupid.
Today, that is one of the most important lessons to learn about free speech and religion. The government in America can’t push religion on you, but it can’t stop you speaking about religion either, whether it be negative or positive—that is free speech.
Very good point. KNOW what those rights are and EXERCISE them or lose them.