by KierDuros

“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.”

These are the words of our Founding Fathers. The idea was a sound one but there is one thing that these very intelligent men failed to take into consideration: Human Nature. The idea of freedom of speech is not a new one and did not spring full fledged from the foreheads of the framers of the Constitution. In Athens, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, the citizens had full free speech rights. This was in fact true in many cultures of the time but ended at about the same time the Christian Church took control of Rome during the 5th and 6th centuries. One of the main reasons why the period between 600 AD and 1500 AD was called the “Dark Ages” is because the Church choked off and intellectual investigation that was. The rise of Protestantism did not really change this very much when Parliament had to pass a Declaration of Freedoms in 1621 because of speech restrictions issued by Protestant King James I, who was an avid supporter of the Puritans. We are taught in school that the Puritans fled Europe from religious prosecution in search of religious freedom (bringing the Witch Trials with them), but the fact is that they were expelled from England for being instrumental in causing much of the friction responsible for the English Civil War. Intellectualism and the fight for civil rights in Europe had to fight organized religion every step of the way. The Church, whether Protestant or Catholic, always sided with the King and kings are not known for favoring free speech.

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Of course organized religion is not known for favoring free speech either. Free speech means questions and it is the rock solid doctrine of both of these particular sects, that questioning God (translate to: questioning the Church) is a deadly sin, lack of faith, and is punishable by an eternity in hellfire upon death and excommunication and ostracizing here on Earth. The Catholic Church spent 900 years scouring the earth for any written words that would cast doubt on their doctrines. The Founding Fathers were all well aware of all of this. This might be the reason for statements like:

“Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error
all over the earth.” – Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.)

And: “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.” – James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

Now we find our citizen´s being muzzled by the religionists who are skulking into government (and control) like wolves in sheep´s clothing. We had a President who spent 8 years stripping American’s of Civil Rights, doing away with public assistance for people who need help by turning it over to an “Office of Faith Based Assistance”, effectively putting the Church in control of all social programs, all while telling the public that all of their actions are guided by the Christian Bible.

We tend to forget that people are people and not all people have the same agenda. This is a wonderful concept for a people who actually believe in freedom. We have many people with religious, social and financial agendas that have nothing to do with freedoms for anyone else. We are seeing a huge attempt by people within government and the media to keep us divided on trivial issues while they slowly strip us of our rights. There are very few freespeech resources left.

Bertrand Russell (May 1872 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, socialist, pacifist and social critic. Although he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died. Russell led the British “revolt against idealism” in the early 1900s. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his protégé Wittgenstein and his elder Frege, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century’s premier logicians. He co-authored, with AN Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay “On Denoting” has been considered a “paradigm of philosophy.” Both works have had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, and philosophy. He was a prominent anti-war activist, championing free trade between nations and anti-imperialism. Russell was imprisoned for his pacifist activism during World War I, campaigned against Adolf Hitler, for nuclear disarmament, criticised Soviet totalitarianism and the United States of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.”
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