#amendment

I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy... But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head... The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#authoritarianism #bill-of-rights #constitution #democracy #egalitarianism

Our love affair with guns has nothing to do with tyranny, or militias, or self-preservation. Just ask any NRA member the following: If Jesus Christ himself were to come down off the cross and grant you one wish, would you opt for a world without guns -- or the one we live in now? If every gun owner truly feared for their life and liberty, the answer would be obvious. But it's not about life and liberty. It's all about the sheer hard-on of owning a gun. ↗

— Quentin R. Bufogle

#gun-control #gun-laws #gun-owners #gun-violence #guns

Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works. ↗

— Thomas Aquinas

#any #conditions #confession #contrition #good

The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized. ↗

— William O. Douglas

#civilized #decent #free #friend #good

Any time someone carries a picket sign in front of the White House, that is the First Amendment in action. ↗

— Julian Bond

#amendment #any #carries #first #first amendment

Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag. ↗

— Larry Craig

#amendment #away #clear #congress #cut

The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship. ↗

— Joichi Ito

#amendment #amendment rights #beliefs #believe #censorship

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted. ↗

— Robert Reich

#democracy #first-amendment #government #politics #public-assembly

Guns are our friends because in a country without guns, I'm what's known as "prey." All females are. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#politics #second-amendment #humor

Most gun control arguments miss the point. If all control boils fundamentally to force, how can one resist aggression without equal force? How can a truly “free” state exist if the individual citizen is enslaved to the forceful will of individual or organized aggressors? It cannot. ↗

— Tiffany Madison

#freedom #government-corruption #gun-control #gun-laws #gun-rights