Amendments 1 and 2:
Do the first so we more rarely revert to the second
The news has not been fun to watch, has it? The stabbing of an immigrant riding a train; shootings in schools and of inner-city youth. Then there are the ugly comments being bandied about by those on one side against another. Free for all and dysfunction ensues.
These events shock, sicken, or even numb Americans. Calls to repeal the Second Amendment rights to bear arms abound. So, too, do calls to shut down First Amendment free speech rights, forgetting “that personal opinion is subject to critique, and that no ideology is free from debate.” Indeed, the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk, whose primary work embodied the tussle of debate, shines a light on connection between these two amendments.
We should note that the first amendment (free speech) precedes the second (gun rights), not the least being that speech should always be the main course of sharing consternation, not violence. When the initial twelve suggested amendments to the federal Constitution were submitted to Congress in 1791, what became the first amendment immediately followed the second. That sequence remined in the final version after they were ratified.
As Justice Brandeis articulated in Whitney v. California (1927), the Founders “believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; [for] without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile.” It then follows that, if speech is futile, violence would be the likely consequence of speech’s futility.
Though not entirely popular in our increasingly secularized society, the fact stands that the freedom of religion – or conscience, in eighteenth-century parlance – was inextricably connected to the freedom of speech. Yes, Madison advocated for, as Phillip Vincent Munoz put it, a “religion-blind” freedom of conscience.[i] That only meant there should be no state-established religion; not that religion was remove entirely from the public square. The language of the first amendment clarifies the connection of religion, as Madison saw it, to free speech. The first two clauses of the first amendment state that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech . . ..”
Is that an accident? I think not.
More to the point, speech being followed by the potential for violence is something of which all Americans should take note. The message is clear. Speech is the better option, violence the less desirable one. We need to promote free speech.
This is why arguments that “words are violence” are not only dangerous; they are also nonsensical. By definition to tolerate is being willing to accept views and behaviors you dislike.
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Understanding Words That Wound, like more recent critical race theory publications, look at the impact words have on the recipient of the message as a means of determining what hate speech is or isn’t. Using this framework, context and intent seem to play a secondary role in determining what hate speech is and is not. It may be why the US doesn’t have hate speech laws per say. It is incitement speech that matters here under law.
As demonstrated by recent events, actual violence can follow the failure to use words. Humans can instinctively turn to violence. It is human nature. Hedonistic, pleasure-seeking individuals, wanting to maximize pleasure and minimize their own pain jump to violence when things don’t feel right for them. Such attitudes and views spell a road to Gomorrah. Higher order thinking allows for civil society to even exist, and speech – especially free speech – is one of its cornerstones.
How might it work, though, when those on the Right appear so fed up they are ready to abandon first amendment free speech, while the Left argues that speech is violence? It won’t. If the far Left believes that words are violence, then actual violence has no meaning to them; the Right, wishing to conserve and preserve, may push legislation that silences loud opposition.
With the free speech of the first amendment preceding the second amendment protection to bear arms, equating words with violence spells the end of days for the American experiment. In other words, use the first amendment more regularly so we need not revert to the second much.
As Thurgood Marshall made plain in Police Dept. of City of Chicago v. Mosley (1972), “above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” That rule applies to all citizens. We do not need to like the words. The words are not violence. Real violence is far worse. Just ask Charlies Kirk’s wife.
[i] Phillip Vincent Munoz, “James Madison’s Principle of Religious Liberty,” The American Political Science Review, no. 1 (2003):