America isn’t easy

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.”
- Michael Douglas from “The American President.”

When I taught Government at the high school level, all students were required by statute (105 ILCS, 5/27-3 and 5/27-4) to take and pass a test on the Bill of Rights, the United States Constitution and the Illinois Constitution, in order to qualify for graduation.  It was then and still is critical that all citizens, not just my students understand not only the structure of our government, they have a good foundation in understanding the rights guaranteed to them in the Bill of Rights. When my students studied the Bill of Rights, I tried to drive home for them not only the importance of knowing their rights, but being able to defend those rights when there is evidence of their rights being denied or abridged, especially our right of free speech.

In today’s world, we seem to have developed the notion that free speech is what individuals deem free speech. As Winston Churchill once said, “everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day goes by without it being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” We seem to be experiencing a society where its only free speech if I agree to what is being said, discounting the validity of thoughts expressed by others. To provide one such example, consider how speakers are turned away by universities if it is felt that their message might be too controversial or may offend a segment of their student population. While this is one such example, I can draw many more examples of this from events taking place in our country today.

As Michael Douglas in his role as President Andrew Shepherd states in his closing speech from the movie, The American President, “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship, you’ve got to want it bad.” Maybe, if “we want it bad,” we each need to go back to our old high school government books, open them up to the Bill of Rights, and really study the meaning behind the words. Maybe then we will develop more tolerance for opinions that strongly differ from ours, and in the process, become a society that isn’t as polarized and divided.