Tom Kirvan
Legal News, Editor-in-Chief
Legal News, Editor-in-Chief
On a visit to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2017, principally to see then U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith earn a royal salute at the Supreme Court, I carved out time the following day to stop by the Newseum, the now shuttered shrine to all-things journalism.
The self-guided Newseum tour was a fascinating experience, featuring 15 theaters and a like number of galleries that highlighted the importance of freedom of the press, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech.
The museum, built at a reported cost of $450 million, opened in 2008 as the home of the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit organization founded by then USA Today publisher Al Neuharth. Located along Pennsylvania Avenue with a view of the National Mall, the building featured the 45 words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, etched into a four-story tall stone panel that graced the front of the 250,000-square-foot facility.
Sadly, the Newseum closed in late 2019, and the building was sold the following year to Johns Hopkins University, which has converted the facility for educational use.
Gone in the remodel, of course, is the towering reminder of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, as the gleaming new Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center has been refaced to reflect the university’s increased visibility in the nation’s capital.
Fortunately, on my way out of the Newseum that day seven years ago, I purchased a token memento from my visit, a 3 x 5 magnet inscribed with the message, “Freedom of Speech Is Not a License to Be Stupid.”
In this age of political polarization and moral turpitude, I am reminded of that message all too frequently, perhaps never more so than during an otherwise glorious bike ride through some of the well-to-do neighborhoods
surrounding the Cranbrook campus in Bloomfield Hills.
On that sunny weekend morning, in front of one of the mega-mansions that line a particularly hilly section of the area, I came across a sign planted near the entrance to a long and winding driveway. It had a seven-line all-caps message for passersby:
IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE
• THE NEWS IS PROPAGANDA
• THE STATE IS ORGANIZED CRIME
• TAXATION IS THEFT
• SOCIALISM IS THE GOSPEL OF ENVY
• ALL GUN LAWS ARE AN INFRINGEMENT
• LIBERTY IS EVERYTHING
I’m not sure what the Founding Fathers would think of such beliefs, but I’m very certain that an incredibly unhappy homeowner lives there, whether of the he, she, or they variety.
I’m also fairly certain that such homeowners align with a current presidential candidate who takes daily liberties with the truth, casting aside a belief in the value of honesty and integrity in exchange for the practices of greed and self-indulgence.
Such is the state of today’s society, where as one unnamed observer declared that “the purpose of free speech is to allow the stupid, the vile, and the dangerous to freely self-identify so that we can avoid and shun them.
Anything that suppresses that very public self-identification process only drives such speech underground where it is hard to guard against.”
With that in mind, “liberty” is indeed “everything,” especially for those with a warped and sick sense of reality.
The self-guided Newseum tour was a fascinating experience, featuring 15 theaters and a like number of galleries that highlighted the importance of freedom of the press, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech.
The museum, built at a reported cost of $450 million, opened in 2008 as the home of the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit organization founded by then USA Today publisher Al Neuharth. Located along Pennsylvania Avenue with a view of the National Mall, the building featured the 45 words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, etched into a four-story tall stone panel that graced the front of the 250,000-square-foot facility.
Sadly, the Newseum closed in late 2019, and the building was sold the following year to Johns Hopkins University, which has converted the facility for educational use.
Gone in the remodel, of course, is the towering reminder of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, as the gleaming new Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center has been refaced to reflect the university’s increased visibility in the nation’s capital.
Fortunately, on my way out of the Newseum that day seven years ago, I purchased a token memento from my visit, a 3 x 5 magnet inscribed with the message, “Freedom of Speech Is Not a License to Be Stupid.”
In this age of political polarization and moral turpitude, I am reminded of that message all too frequently, perhaps never more so than during an otherwise glorious bike ride through some of the well-to-do neighborhoods
surrounding the Cranbrook campus in Bloomfield Hills.
On that sunny weekend morning, in front of one of the mega-mansions that line a particularly hilly section of the area, I came across a sign planted near the entrance to a long and winding driveway. It had a seven-line all-caps message for passersby:
IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE
• THE NEWS IS PROPAGANDA
• THE STATE IS ORGANIZED CRIME
• TAXATION IS THEFT
• SOCIALISM IS THE GOSPEL OF ENVY
• ALL GUN LAWS ARE AN INFRINGEMENT
• LIBERTY IS EVERYTHING
I’m not sure what the Founding Fathers would think of such beliefs, but I’m very certain that an incredibly unhappy homeowner lives there, whether of the he, she, or they variety.
I’m also fairly certain that such homeowners align with a current presidential candidate who takes daily liberties with the truth, casting aside a belief in the value of honesty and integrity in exchange for the practices of greed and self-indulgence.
Such is the state of today’s society, where as one unnamed observer declared that “the purpose of free speech is to allow the stupid, the vile, and the dangerous to freely self-identify so that we can avoid and shun them.
Anything that suppresses that very public self-identification process only drives such speech underground where it is hard to guard against.”
With that in mind, “liberty” is indeed “everything,” especially for those with a warped and sick sense of reality.
Political signage has been taken to a decidedly distasteful level this campaign season.
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