Mediaboss Marketing

In May 2021, I published a list of Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments with our friends over at Areo. The great Nadine Strossen former president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, and one of the foremost experts on freedom of speech alive today saw the series and offered to provide her own answers to some important misconceptions about freedom of speech. My answers, when applicable, appear with hers. Because the remaining arguments well be addressing are more nuanced, weve decided to drop the word bad from the title going forward.

Earlier in the series:

Assertion: Free speech rests on the false premise that the marketplace of ideas will lead to truth.

Greg Lukianoff: A very similar argument recently came up in a First Amendment News contribution by Emerson Sykes, a free speech lawyer at the ACLU who does very important First Amendment work. Sykes wrote:

I would be remiss if I didnt take this opportunity to point out a few old arguments for free speech that I think have outlasted their utility that the cure for bad speech is more speech, and the related metaphor of the marketplace of ideas. While counter-speech is undoubtedly powerful in many instances, inherent in both of these arguments is the idea that unfettered speech will eventually and inevitably lead to truth and justice. If we just let every idea run its course, the thinking goes, the good ones will win in the end.

But there is nothing inevitable about truth or justice. And all speech is not equal. Just as the marketplace of goods is full of distortions and structural power imbalances, it is not at all obvious that the marketplace of ideas requires a laisse-faire approach. The question is not whether good speech always wins in the end (a quick perusal of Twitter will indicate that it emphatically does not), the question is what rights do we all have to our ideas and communications, and who gets the power to decide what is true, what is acceptable speech, and what is not.

With much respect to Sykes, whom I admire, I believe this is a strawman. I have not seen any serious free speech advocate arguing unfettered speech will eventually and inevitably lead to truth and justice. Free speech is not all that you need to find the truth but surely truth stands zero chance if no one can utter it. Freedom of speech is necessary but not sufficient to the discovery of truth.

Simply, you cannot understand the world as it is if you dont know what people think and why.

Now, a brief but important digression on how truth is defined in free speech classics like Miltons 1644 Areopagitica and Mills 1859 On Liberty, and how these conceptions of truth relate to the terms usage today: In older treatises on freedom of speech, as well as in some more recent writings, truth is used not to refer to a single objective reality, but to an iterative ongoing process. To paraphrase Jefferson, truth can mean not error or even simply better arguments. It refers to an approach toward a better approximation of reality, not an arrival at complete understanding. This, unfortunately, needs to be clarified, because one of the attacks on freedom of speech is premised on a static and absolute definition of truth. Of course, due to human bias, objective truth is not perfectly knowable: Therefore, the argument goes, free speech is of no value in attaining truth. But once you reject the false binary at the heart of the often fruitless debate about whether or not objective truth exists, and instead focus on the fact that open discussions where all opinions are aired are more likely than restricted discussions to lead away from error and toward better arguments and ideas, the value of free speech becomes self-evident.

Now onto the marketplace of ideas metaphor: Like Sykes, I have been highly critical of the marketplace of ideas metaphor, and believe it is incomplete. In my piece, Coronavirus and the failure of the Marketplace of Ideas, I address several shortcomings with the marketplace of ideas metaphor, namely that the concept doesnt provide much space for the importance of artistic freedom (as art doesnt neatly fit into good, bad, true, or false boxes), and does not explain how certain bad ideas like the flat Earth theory seem to have immortal staying power, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. I instead proposed the lab in the looking glass metaphor in short, that the primary value of free speech is that it gives you the chance to understand the world as it really is. The shift in emphasis may seem subtle, but its important. Too often, we focus on evaluating whether or not an individuals factual assertions are true, yet miss a really important truth the fact of the existence of that individuals perspective. Simply, you cannot understand the world as it is if you dont know what people think and why. Not only is this true on a civic and democratic level, but also on a historical, psychological, and scientific level. Free speech is essential because it is always important to know what people really think and why, especially if their views are potentially pernicious.

So because the marketplace of ideas concept is flawed and incomplete, should we abandon it? No, because the metaphor does vividly convey one of the important justifications for free speech: Good and bad ideas do collide when debate is unrestricted, and illustrate what I call Mills Trident in short, the observation made by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty that, in any argument, there are only three possibilities (being wrong, being partially wrong, or being wholly correct), and every possibility is improved or strengthened by freedom of speech and inquiry.

The marketplace analogy makes Mills Trident quite easy to understand. If the marketplace is free, bad ideas can be tested against good ideas, and good ones can be sharpened by collision with bad ones. If a good idea is restricted, the corresponding bad idea will never be tested, and people will lose reason to reject it. Moreover, even if only bad ideas are restricted, our understanding of the good ideas will be weakened.

One important note on the marketplace of ideas is that it is a very appropriate metaphor and model for higher education, the context in which I have spent most of my career. Indeed, scholarship at its best is supposed to be a process of arguing, testing, researching, re-arguing, retesting all to via subtraction (a.k.a. via negativa) eliminate a larger and larger number of false assertions. While in everyday life among many people matters of preference and emotional state may be primary topics of discussion, the project of higher education is to help us understand what ideas may be false by aiming toward a better approximation of the truth, even if we never arrive there.

We still need people who are both free and willing to speak the truth.

Both my lab in the looking glass metaphor and the proper understanding of the marketplace of ideas metaphor directly imply that, again, free speech is necessary, but not sufficient to find truth. By the logic of both metaphors and in real life we still need people who are both free and willing to speak the truth.

Lastly, as for the contention that the cure for bad speech is more speech has outlived its utility, its hard to imagine what could adequately replace more speech as a remedy. Historically, most cures for speech have involved violence, the coercive power of the state, or the illiberal will of the mob or of conformist institutions, from witch burnings to the more-than-550 scholars on campuses throughout the country who have been targeted for punishment just since 2015. Silence is one way to respond to bad speech as it is a means of exercising ones right not to speak. However, silence allows bad ideas to spread without being challenged. So, while free speech may not always cure bad speech, more speech is still the best available option for addressing it.

Nadine Strossen: This argument has two major flaws. First, the truth-seeking rationale never has depended on the clearly meritless view that good ideas will necessarily dominate, and bad ideas will necessarily evaporate. Rather, that rationale has depended on the demonstrably valid view that we can better approach this ideal result through a vigorous exchange of ideas among members of the public rather than any top-down control. Second, even assuming, hypothetically, that the truth-seeking rationale were unpersuasive, robust free speech protection would still be warranted on the basis of one or more of the additional, independently sufficient rationales that underpin it.

The truth-seeking rationale rightly constitutes one important justification albeit only one among several for our modern speech-protective standards. Although this rationale dates back to much earlier free speech philosophers, it was first encapsulated in the memorable marketplace metaphor in a landmark 1919 dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. That metaphor and, more importantly, the truth-seeking rationale it summarized have since been embedded in countless Supreme Court majority opinions. Holmes himself never used the precise shorthand phrase that is routinely invoked to purportedly paraphrase his analysis: the marketplace of ideas. Rather, consistent with his skeptical philosophical outlook, Holmes hypothesized that the free exchange of ideas might be a better alternative than persecution for the expression of opinions, explaining (emphasis added):

[W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe. . . that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

As the italicized words indicate, Holmes argument was far from an outright prediction that free speech would inevitably lead to truth. Rather, he explained, the theory of our Constitution is that free speech is better suited for truth-seeking than censorship, but he acknowledged that this approach is an experiment, as all life is an experiment, as it is necessarily based upon imperfect knowledge. Nonetheless, he concluded that [w]hile that experiment is part of our system, . . . we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. In short, a rigorous search for truth demands that all ideas must be subject to debate and discussion through robust free speech including that very concept itself.

Arigorous search for truth demands that all ideas must be subject to debate and discussion through robust free speech including that very concept itself.

Evidence accumulated through our ongoing First Amendment experiment continues to reaffirm that free speech is a less imperfect vehicle for pursuing truth than is the censorial alternative. For example, shortly before I wrote this piece, scientific evidence came to light supporting a previously discredited theory that COVID had originated from a leak in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Government officials and experts had condemned this theory as fake news and even hate speech since the pandemics outbreak in early 2020, and it had been suppressed in major traditional and social media outlets. Yet, in the spring of 2021 the theory was rehabilitated as at least warranting serious consideration. Despite the exclusion of this theory from key segments of the marketplace of ideas, that overall marketplace was still functioning. Had that not been the case, we would have been denied critically important ongoing examinations, with their potentially enormous impact on public health and national security.

In 1984, Professor Melville Nimmer well captured the core skeptical, relativistic notion underlying the truth-seeking rationale for free speech. Quoting Holmes marketplace metaphor, he asked, If acceptance of an idea in the competition of the market is not the best test of its truth, what is the alternative? Logically, as he concluded, the answer could only be acceptance of an idea by some individual or group narrower than that of the public at large. Are We the People, who wield sovereign power in our democratic republic, willing to entrust any individual or subgroup with the incalculable power of determining which ideas are fit for our consumption and discussion? Are we willing to entrust that power to any government official or body?

In addition to the persuasive truth-seeking rationale for strongly protecting free speech, there are multiple other important rationales, each of which provides an independent justification for such protection. These include the essential roles of free speech in democratic self-governance, facilitating individual autonomy, promoting tolerance, and furthering all other human rights. For these reasons, freedom of speech has been strongly protected not only in the U.S. Constitution, but also in its counterparts in countries around the world, as well as in major international and regional human rights treaties.

Read the original here:
Does free speech 'inevitably' lead towards truth? Is the 'Marketplace of Ideas' a broken metaphor? Part 13 of answers to arguments against free speech...

This is my reply to the response to my letter to the editor published on Feb. 20.I received your letter by mail with no return address which was signed Ole, Liberal Five-Percenter.

At the age of 30 my wife and I moved to a different state and when we registered to vote, she chastised me for, again, registering as a Democrat. It is true that I am registered as a Republican and have been approached in the past to serve in the party but I have refused as I felt that I would be bound by the party and I do not always agree with their tenets.Many times I have voted a split ticket.

You imply that the USA has never been a Christian nation and mentioned the First Amendment. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written along Judeo-Christian principles. Your statement that, Puritans, Pilgrims, Quakers and Catholics came to this country to escape religious persecution and domination by state-run religions in Europe is true. They came to escape the various practices and distorted versions of the Bible developed to suit the ruling classes in the various countries. The Puritans and Pilgrims drew up documents such as the Mayflower Compact which were documents that foreshadowed the flowering of American democracy. No one, to my knowledge, has been forced to become a Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. by a state or this nation.

You suggest that the Old Testament is nothing more than history. I submit that you read Matt. 5:17-18, 38-39 and Hosea 4:6. Christ came to fulfil the law but Gods complete law has not yet been fulfilled as Christ is still with us. Matt. 28:20, Mark 16:20.

True, the words homosexual, abortion or fetus do not appear in the Bible. I recommend you read Genesis 18 and 19, Romans 1:26-32, James 1:13-16, I Corinthians 6:8-10, Psalms 22:10, Psalms 127:3 and 139:13, Isaiah. 44:2, 24 and 46:3, Jeremiah. 1:5, Luke 1:15. Genesis 21:22-25 specially states child not fetus.

I perceive that you arent a veteran due to the disparaging and vulgar remarks you used to disrespect and dishonor the millions who have defended your right to make those statements.

One would discern that you are an angry miserable individual and since you know where I live, I invite you to come by so I could introduce you to the person I met 42 years ago that took away my pain.

Roy Chambers

Salisbury

See the article here:
Letter: Response to letter in the mail - Salisbury Post - Salisbury Post

WASHINGTON

John, the editor of a small Native American tribal newspaper, asked that VOA protect his identity. His paper, like an estimated 72% of media outlets in Indian Country, is owned and funded by the tribal government. And because the government controls the purse strings, leaders say they have the right to control what gets printed.

Thats why my paper is kind of tame, he said.

He writes about community events, school sports, births and deaths, national news that affects the tribe, but said he never reports on tribal affairs unless, that is, it is something that makes the leadership look good.

I wrote something [negative] a few years back and almost lost my paper, he said. Had the tribal government cut funds as theyd threatened, he would have had to shut down operations.

Native media today

Because they have long been overlooked by mainstream media, citizens of the 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S. have always relied on their tribes for news and information that affect their daily lives.

The 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) made it illegal for tribal governments to make or enforce any law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

Many tribes have laws protecting First Amendment rights, but enforcement may be lax, and because tribes are sovereign, federal courts dont have jurisdiction over civil rights violations.

In a 1998 article, Protecting the First Amendment in Indian Country, the late Yakama journalist Richard LaCourse described a number interfering actions tribal governments may take to stifle press freedom: hiring unqualified reporters on the basis of blood relation or political unity; firing staff; cutting funds; censoring stories before publication; blocking access to tribal government records and proceedings.

In 2018, the Native American Journalists Association, or NAJA, launched its Red Press Initiative, reaching out to members and asking them about the state of press freedom in their communities.

Only 65 media directors and producers responded, along with nearly 400 consumers. While not an exhaustive survey, it demonstrates that press freedom in Indian Country is inconsistent.

About half of the respondents said they faced censorship; a third said they were sometimes or always required to get tribal leaderships approval before publishing stories; nearly a quarter said tribal government records and financial information were probably not open to journalists; and nearly half said they had faced intimidation or harassment by tribal officials or community members.

Today, NAJA says that a handful of tribal newspapers have managed to overcome these challenges and can serve as models for other tribes.

Rocky road to independence

The Navajo Times, based in Window Rock, Arizona, is one of a handful of Native newspapers to have achieved full editorial independence, but it was decades in coming.

The paper began as a monthly newsletter in late 1959 to keep off-reservation boarding school students up to date on happenings back home. Over the next two decades, editors came and went, and relations with the tribal government were uneven.

In 1982, Peterson Zah was elected Navajo chief, replacing Peter MacDonald, who had held a stranglehold on the office since 1971. MacDonald was, according to one Navajo Times reporter, a man who didnt like to work openly and honestly with the press.

But Zah felt differently and pledged to restore honesty and accountability to the tribal government, along with press freedom, which he said was absolutely necessary in a true democracy.

Zah lived up to his promises, supporting the paper even when it was critical of his policies.

We were completely independent, if not downright ornery, former editor Mark Trahant would later tell the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

But Zah lasted only one term. MacDonald was reelected chairman in 1986 and shortly afterward closed down the Timeswhich had publicly endorsed his opponentfiring most of its staff. It relaunched four months later as a weekly paper.

Turning point

In 1989, a Senate Indian Affairs committee investigating corruption in Indian Country heard testimony that MacDonald was siphoning tribal money to fund his expensive lifestyle.

It was a time of great turmoil and political divisiveness, said Navajo Times CEO and publisher Tom Arviso, Jr., who had come to the paper as a sports writer in 1983 and by 1989 had been promoted to editor. We just tried to tell the story of what was going on with the leadership and let readers decide for themselves.

The Navajo Times covered it all, said Arviso, provoking anger among MacDonalds supporters.

People threatened me and some of the reporters with physical harm, Arviso said. A group of them actually marched to our office, telling me to come out and face them.

On July 20, 1989, MacDonald announced he was taking back power. With his encouragement, several hundred of his supporters, armed with baseball bats and wooden clubs, stormed tribal offices in Window Rock. In the riot that followed, two people died and 11 were injured, including several police officers.

MacDonald was subsequently convicted on federal fraud, racketeering and conspiracy charges including inciting the riot. He was sent to prison.

Cutting purse strings

In 2000, Arviso was selected for a John S. Knight Fellowship in Journalism at Stanford University, where he studied newspaper publishing and business management.

And that's how we came up with the plan to incorporate the Navajo Times, break away from the government and organize [it] as a for-profit corporation, he said. The bylaws state that the actual owners of the newspaper are the Navajo people themselves.

The tribal council approved the plan in October 2003, and on January 1, 2004, the Times began operating officially as a publishing company.

The tribe has asked that we make a return on the investment that the government has made, he said. But we don't just write a check and say, Heres $50,000. We give it back in services to our people.

Today, the Times serves 23,000 paying subscribers and generates substantial advertising income. But what about smaller tribes, which could never hope to generate that kind of revenue?

Legislative route

When former newspaper reporter and publisher James Roan Gray was elected chief of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma in 2002, he was determined to shake things up. A century earlier, the U.S. government had passed a law restructuring the tribes government and membership qualifications.

We were stuck in an old tribal council structure that really didn't give us much self-determination at all, he said. The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] agreed with us.

Gray envisioned an overhaul of the Osage government, and in 2003 took his case to Washington. H.R.2912, a bill to reaffirm the inherent sovereign rights of the Osage Tribe, passed and was signed as Public Law No: 108-431 in 2004.

The law allowed us to reorganize our government, determine citizenship and chart a future of our own design, Gray said.

After extensive consultation with tribe members, the Osage Nation drafted and approved its first constitution in almost a century. It contains language barring tribal government from making or enforcing any laws restricting a free press.

The tribe passed an independent press act, naming the Osage News as its official newspaper.

Gray also issued an executive order tasking the newspaper to report without bias the activities of the government and the news of interest to foster a more informed Osage citizenry and protect individual Osage citizens right to freedom of speech or the press.

He didnt get everything he wanted: Gray had hoped that the executive branch would have sole control in naming the three-man editorial board. The tribes supreme court, however, ruled that tribal legislators would have equal say in the matter.

We've all learned to live with that structure, he said.

Since then, the tribe has amended the law to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources and prohibit leadership from defunding the newspaper.

Raising trust

Bryan Pollard, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, piloted the 2018 Red Press Initiative during his tenure as NAJA president. He cautions against making assumptions.

Its not always because there's an authoritarian regime that wants to control the message, although that exists in some cases. Sometimes, its simply because a tribe doesnt have the capacity to develop the structures and institutions necessary for press freedom, Pollard said.

Today, NAJA works with tribes and Native journalists to educate them on methods of achieving press freedom, and the ways in which it benefits both the tribal leaders and citizens.

Society is better if it is informed, said Gray. Press freedom benefits the tribe if the tribal leadership values the trust of the people.

Some tribal leaders don't trust their own citizens, he added, so they tell them what they think they want to hear in hopes that it will get them reelected.

And if folks don't trust the contents of the tribal newspaper, then no matter what you put out, they're not going to believe youor at the very least, they'll be skeptical, Gray said.

Read the original:
How Native American Tribal Papers Are Forging a Path to Press Freedom - Voice of America - VOA News

Pam Taylor| The Daily Telegram

By the time this appears in print, two things are sure Kyiv, Ukraine, one of Europes oldest cities, will be changed forever, and the lives of all of us will be touched in some way.

Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, is rich in the natural resources coveted by others oil, gas, minerals, abundant arable land, clean waterand a warm-water port on the Black Sea.Its history is marred by war and suffering.Yet its strong, resilient people and its cultural traditions survive.

The invasion by the fascist autocrat Vladimir Putin is no surprise. Hes always been transparent about his goals break up NATO and the European Union, weaken the U.S.and rebuild the old Soviet Union.By adopting the anti-gay rhetoric of extremist Russian Orthodox clergy, he retains control through the same kind of unholy alliance between religious leaders and rulers that exists in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and goes back through the Crusades and the pharaohs of Egypt to the beginning of human history.

Religion provides the fervor (maybe the promise of 72 virgins, eternal glory for hastening the biblical End Times, or some other cosmic reward) and bodies for tyrants to use to gain wealth and power. Fortunately, our Constitutions First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….

To achieve these goals, Putin smashed cities in Chechnya and Syria and attacked Georgia. Before Donald Trump invited him to become campaign manager in 2016, Paul Manafort spent a decade as consultant for Ukraines oligarch-backed, anti-NATO Party of Regions and its former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych. In 2014, Ukrainians tired of Yanukovychs corruption and his turn away from western democracy.They overthrew the Russian puppet government, and Yanukovych fled to Russia.Shortly afterward, Putin annexed Crimea.

Manafort succeeded in removing U.S. support for supplying weapons to Ukraine from the 2016 Republican Party platform.In 2018, Russian operative Marina Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to infiltrate Republican-affiliated groups and events, including the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast, to push Putin's agenda. The NRA allegedly illegally funneled Russian money to Mr. Trumps 2016 election campaign and paid for Republican legislators trips to Russia.

Trump was impeached after he tried to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by asking him to find dirt on political opponent Joe Biden in return for Trumps release of Congress-approved weapons. Putins supporters here in the U.S. continue to advocate for his version of fascist pseudo-Christian nationalism.

Besides direct military action, the threat of mutually assured destruction, and cyberwarfare, the Russian use of social media to undermine America has been very effective.

Tracked Russian trolls and bots are burrowed in on platforms everywhere, spreading nonsense like this:Mainstream media is fake news; Democrats are leftist murderers and pedophiles who support child trafficking; Hunter Biden something-laptop-Ukraine or China; George Soros (code word for Jews) is behind a New World Order plot to dominate the globe; crisis actors, woke people, elites, public schools and universities, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the Deep State are in on the plot; lies and quackery about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and especially about Dr. Anthony Fauci; and the biggest lie of all, that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was somehow stolen. The latest is that there are secret U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine, which are used for nefarious purposes.

A shocked talk show host commenting on Ukrainian refugees exclaimed, They look just like me! (Shes white.) Confirmed reports coming out of Ukraine are horrifying. I thought about refugees from wars in the Middle East and Africa, Myanmar, the Uyghurs in China, those fleeing gang wars in Haiti, Central and South America. As many as 68 million, by some estimates.

When it ends, when this madman is finished and theres no food, no water, no clothing, no shelter, no place to lay ones head, I wonder about the survivors. What will become of them?

Pam Taylor is a retired Lenawee County teacher andan environmental activist. She can be reached at ptaylor001@msn.com.

More here:
When the invasion is over, what happens to the survivors? - Monroe Evening News

Let me be perfectly frank. For far too many years, we have been subjected to what Johnny-Come-Latelys want to believe they know about the thoughts, hearts and souls of persons deceased long before Johnny was even a glimmer in his or her mothers expecting eye.

Good literature of our childhood has been pulled from the library shelves because someone now has decided that the author (from then) meant something derogative being hotly attested today. Historical monuments are being pulled off their bases because the subject happened to be a leader of a movement now frowned upon; not considering that said individual had the blessing of the opportunity to examine the advanced understandings may well have made a different choice.

Point being, no one except the good Lord Himself knows the thoughts and meanings of another without intimate knowledge of and opportunity to question the subject themselves, and without the history, advanced understanding rarely comes.

I was stirred up while watching the State of the Union Address. A speech well delivered, whether I agree with the politics behind it or not. However, during the evening, we were subjected to yet another celebrity endorsement of an idea founded on the very principle that persons today believe they can speak to the thoughts, minds and souls of persons of the past to the point that the rest of us should be chastised and driven to their way of thinking.

I suppose the spokesperson was chosen because his father was once the speaker of the annual event, and this should somehow add authority to his words. Once again, the idea of Separation of Church and State has been forced upon us. I want to finally lay this beast (the idea, not the spokesperson) to bed. This notion has been debated for as long as the Constitution of the United States was first signed, or at least since the adoption of the First Amendment in 1791.

I read five of the historically documented arguments in the debate arguing for the notion that the founding fathers intended there to be a separation of church and state. In each argument, without fail, and I quote, the words separation of church and state do not appear in the Constitution, nor the First Amendment.

Each of the arguments went on to say, in one fashion or another, that the idea of its intent was derived through other writings by these same founders. In fact, the most noted document in the history of this debate, a letter from Thomas Jefferson in which the phrase wall of separation was included, happened to have been written to a church convention explaining that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was purposed for the protection of the church against government interference.

The basic premise was that the government would not choose any religion to be the official religion of the country. All statements in accordance with the Establishment Clause were carefully worded to protect each persons right to practice the religion of their choice or no religion at all.

The only fact repeated in these arguments, and therefore known, is that the Constitution of these United States in no way suggests that there should be no reference to religious understanding within the walls or establishments of our government.

This argument that there is has done nothing but scare people away from moral lesson or comment within our government institutions, further eroding the already natural human condition that leads to chaos.

There appears to be, at least based upon the reports of those trying to do important work from within, a serious erosion of basic respect and decency that is vitally important in our schools; the very government institution through which most of our impressionable minds funnel through.

Now I, from personal experience, can tell you that this erosion has been seriously sliding since the 80s and the penalties for those who seek to do the right thing by expecting order and rule in the classroom have stiffened to the point, they just want to throw their hands up and find other career opportunities.

But they hesitate because of their love for their role and the knowledge that should they leave, the chaos would only worsen since, the proverbial monkeys would be in charge of the zoo.

Religion is not an evil word. Religion is applicable for all citizens, for all religions typically have a book for the guidance of those who believe. And, though I only know from one of those books, I can say that the scriptures are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

So even if you are not a believer, there is excellent instruction for morality that would benefit the whole of society.

Please read the following, (ideas and quotes taken from a study book written by Dr. Derwin Gray).

Society is a family of sorts. There are families who understand there is an unstated rule

Dr. Gray is speaking of rules of behavior unwritten, but understood based on traditions, rules and accepted behaviors. Dr. Gray goes on to state, Every family has practices and behaviors that are part of their culture.

Well, religious persons have their own families with their own set of guidelines for behavior. And the family of God is no different.

If there was a poster on the refrigerator in the kitchen of Gods house, stating the rules of acceptable behavior, it would have family rules like these listed:

Be gentle and humble; love each other with patience; use your God-given; abilities ; grow up in spiritual maturity; be generous; speak truthfully; deal with anger and conflict; do not take what belongs to others; watch your words; show compassion; forgive like Jesus forgave you; respect others to earn respect

With rules such as these, who can argue that religious behavior or speech is detrimental to social institution.

Our schools need to return to the days when great advances in science and math were commonplace with moral respectful behavior. This is necessary, so that education can return to the forefront of the institute.

An excellent place to start is to spend more time focused on what needs to be accomplished and less on what wants to be done. Quit starting a civil war with rhetoric based upon fallacy.

Written by the Rev. Robert Henry, Senior Minister Living By Faith Ministries and member of the Pickaway County Ministerial Association for The Circleville Herald.

Here is the original post:
Values for Living: Let us finally put this thing to bed - Circleville Herald