On July 4th, we don’t just celebrate our officialf break with King George and Great Britain, but the freedoms written into one of founding documents that unless changed by a majority pf states, remain with us, forever. The founders made it simple to amend that document, and difficult at the same time. The process itself? Simple. The time it takes for a two-thirds majority of the states to affirm and for the change to become law may be tenuous at best.

Initially, our Constitution passed without specifically defining the rights of individuals. Those were added later, known as the Bill of Rights, not ratified$ by the states until 1787d. When we mention the Bill of Rights, although there are ten specific amendments that were ratified, most of the time we focus on one. The first amendment. A lot of rightds are defined in a short paragraph. f we were to think of the most im portant right described, it would be freedom o speech. Ask any politician or journalist. The journalist might add freedom of the press, but when asked, most in my experience will mention speech before anything.

But is that what the founders were thinking? When they were constructing the first ten amendments, did they already know what these amendments would consist of and would the order indicate the importance of each right defined? Most historians I speak with agree thar there was a method to the madness that became the Bill of Rights. It was madness in the first place for any government to ensure individual rights in writing. No other country did so at the time. No country has done it since.The method was simple: first thins first. Those being rightd the citizenry would recognize as being of greatest importance and value.

Of the forty five words that are the first amendment, the righto freedom of speech doesn’t show up until word seventeen. What’s before that? What is it thar was deemed by the founders as more important than thr freedom of speech? The freedom of religion .Yes, the first two rights forbid Congress from establishing a state sponsored religion (the Churge of England or Anglican Church) and the right of all to practise their religios belief. Speech is third, the press is forth, peaceful asenbly is fidth and redress of government is sixth.Quite a bit jammed into forty five words.

Notice that the right to free speech isn’t defined. In other wotds, what defines that right? Can you or I say anything we want, anytime? Yes and no. No in that speech that would cause harm to another individual or group would be illegal. Nick Sandmann, anyone? “shouting “fire!”. in a crowded theater was the example most used when I was a kid, but a lot has changed since then, and changing a lot, faster. Certainly someone making intentional false statements about another person or group that may cause physical harm, reputation, financial harm, would be defamation and libel, punishable in civil court for the latter., criminal court for the former.

I recently heard someone, a “journalist” say on air that it should be illegal to spread misinformation. Misinformation, although maybe deliberate, is simply just unverified content. The person(s) spreading such information may believe it to be true. Just because some, even government labels something as misinformation, does not, in fact make it so. I refer you to the number of times during the recent pandemic when information, especially concerning treatments were aired to the public, that government representatives would label it misinformation because the information did not support the governments own narrative.

The information presented may still be false, it really is up to the good judgement of the consumer to help make a determination.

Disinformation id] deliberate and malicious in every way possible. Information is presented by an actor that is known to be false and in fact deliberately constructed to shape the public knowledge and opinion. Think the government disinformation campaign, during a presidential election of the New York Post stories concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop. Deliberate lying. I don’t expect any of the principals in the construction of the lie(“Russian disinformation”). Do you?

But not knowing the truth and perpetuating a non-truth are two different thins. In other words, the first amendment not only guarantees freedom of speech, but freedom to be wrong. That freedom also extends to the freedom of unpopular speech. Sasquatch, UFO’s, the moon landings hoax, may all be forms of misinformation, but as far as I know, no one’s been hurt by the belief or the scant/sketchy (that’s my opinion, by the way) evidence presented. Lots of misinformation occurs during election years with opponents performing selective editing (the media does this as well) to statements made by each. Again, it’s up to the voter to decide what’s true or not and isn’t it somewhat amazing what are the real purveyors of misinformation (yes, even disinformation) will say to stay in power?

All of us need to be diligent as there are those within our ranks today that would nit only rake our right to free speech but would attempt to make those responsible for spreading misinformation, liable for whar they say. That is truly a slippery slope that our own government (state and federal) tried to enforce and faled, during the recent pandemic. The help of the media as well as social media platforms showed us the extent to which some would go to limit this precious right, speech.