09-10-2020, 03:23 AM
(09-09-2020, 06:17 PM)Mick Wrote:(09-09-2020, 08:58 AM)lex24 Wrote:(09-09-2020, 06:18 AM)oldalum Wrote: I'm struck by how often people in general refer to their "Constitutional rights" to justify what they are doing, but don't really understand what those rights are and aren't, and when it is not clear. Maybe we could use some better instruction in high school about the constitution? OTOH, I took Professor Horn's (in-)famous class on Con Law at Stanford in the '70s and I don't think I learned enough about constitutional rights.
Civics and American History. So much depends on the teachers kids get. Mine went to a very good public high school. Civics was a joke. US History not much better. Further, when I went to UCB two survey US History courses were required. The first leading up to the Civil War. Second to the then present. I had the pleasure of two terrific profs. Charles Sellers and Leon Litwack. Litwack was well known on campus for a tremendous multimedia (this was 77 so we’ve are talking still shots, some video, with a music overlay) on Vietnam. But his writings are mostly on Post civil war, reconstruction, with an emphasis on the African American Post slavery experienced I took his Reconstruction course. Brilliant professor.
We suffer as a society when we don’t understand our system and have little to no knowledge of our history
I liked Cuomo's comment "Where does it say that protests have to be peaceful?" Right there in the Constitution, buddy, 1A:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I don't think this is actually the (framers of the) Constitution stating that protests have to be peaceful. This is the Constitution saying the government cannot make laws that prevent people from engaging in peaceful protests. This gives the government room to make laws around people not peaceably assembling. And they have. And now there are all kinds of time, place, and manner restrictions that essentially make the First Amendment null and void to many. The Constitution tends to be something invoked as a political argument but no one in the government really cares about it.
