Try To Enjoy Your Independence

Independence Day was a great opportunity to reflect on a variety of subjects. We pause to remember those who gave their lives so that we can live as free people. There are so many young men and women who could have chosen to stay home and pursue a career and a family, but they chose country over personal pursuits.

There are other reflections worth noting because they reveal how our society is currently functioning. We have a beautiful document called the Constitution which gives us so many freedoms to enjoy. Sadly many people use the Constitution as a license to foment the kind of divisions we are currently experiencing.

The First Amendment gives us the ability to express our views

Inside Politics

on multiple subjects. We can go to public forums and express our feelings on the issue of the moment. The late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that free speech “doesn’t give you the right to yell fire in a crowded theater.” Regrettably, some people manipulate that admonition in the worst possible way.

When it comes to free speech our social media platforms allow too much expression with no serious efforts by such entities as Facebook and Twitter to curb harmful speech. There are so many obnoxious uses of social media that it is hard to recite all of them. One of the worst abuses of free speech is practiced by those who use the platform to bully other people. So often this practice ends in tragedy.

Periodically, we hear of some event that triggers a strong public outcry, such as the recent riots in France over the tragic death of a 17-year-old. No doubt many of the