They were required to subscribe to the religious views of the Church of England, and in very recent history at that time, faced torture, long-term imprisonment in dungeons, and death by various gruesome means for demanding religious autonomy. Furthermore, under British rule, citizens could have their homes invaded by troops at virtually any time and their possessions and papers seized and confiscated without cause or justification, merely on suspicion of wrongdoing. Citizens accused of criminal acts could be arrested and imprisoned without cause and coerced to confess, even falsely, simply to avoid the brutal consequences of continuing to argue their innocence of the stated charges. Naturally, those experiences were fresh in the minds of the Colonists at the time that they envisioned an independent nation. In principle, they set out to create a new society that was devoid of what they believed were the worst intrusions and excesses of the British government...
Therefore, in addition to addressing the issues of free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, the Framers of the Constitution also made sure to include the Second Amendment allowing the citizens to possess weapons for self-defense, the Fourth Amendment prohibiting unwarranted search and seizure and arrest without warrant, the Fifth Amendment prohibiting forced confessions, the Sixth Amendment guaranteeing legal representation for the accused, and the Tenth Amendment recognizing the sovereign rights of the individual states with respect to the federal government.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION plays an important role in the doctrines of human liberty. However not every country grants this right to its citizens. There are many countries in the world where freedom of expression is still a contentious issue and which have been categorized by Freedom House as not being entirely free. The United States of America is one country where the constitution gives every American the freedom of speech
Freedom of Speech In 1776, the United States Constitution was signed to protect the freedoms of every American and to solidify the rights that so many were currently fighting for. It was the government that implemented ways for everyone to have equal rights to express what ever they deemed appropriate without the fear of there being repercussions for their actions. That is no longer the case. The government now, instead of
Caselaw.findlaw.com);in Guiles v. Marineau (2006) (No. 05-0327 2nd Cir. Court) the Court of Appeals ruled that the school "violated a student's free speech" by disciplining him for wearing a T-shirt that criticized George W. Bush and used images of drugs and alcohol (www.NSBA.org);Roberts alluded to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (No. 86-836) (484 U.S. 260) (1988), in which a student newspaper was censored because of an article on pregnancy, as justification for
Authors Donald Lively and Russell Weaver describe Hustler Magazine as Falwell's "antagonist (p. 79)," no doubt representing for Falwell abuses of our Constitutional freedoms. "In 1983, Hustler Magazine decided to parody Falwell using a Campari Liqueur advertisement. The actual Campari ads portrayed interviews with various celebrities about their 'first times.' Although the advertisement actually focused on the first time that the celebrities had sampled Campari, the ads portrayed the double
Constitutional Truth The United States Constitution impacted the development of American freedom in a number of different ways. It established the basic format for that freedom which has only been altered in the ensuing centuries by amendments and landmark Supreme Court rulings. In doing so, the Constitution provided the scope of the limited focus of American freedom which was far from freedom for all regardless of gender, race, and economic status.
(The Sixth Amendment, http://civilliberty.about.com/od/lawenforcementterrorism/p/6th_amendment.htm. Retrieved 6 December 2009.) The Fourteenth Amendment, although not (obviously) a part of the Bill of Rights, presents rights that are as central to our democracy as those outlined in the Bill of Rights, including an expansion of the definition of citizenship to include the slaves freed after the Civil War, and what is known as the "due process" clause. This clause argues that the government
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