[Ike]

Thanks for the hand up, Griff. Here is another good read. Glad to see some of you are still wary half a century later. Read it and heed it.

Freedom Of The Press
posted February 28, 2006

Freedom of the press. What does that mean? I’m talking about within the context of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Why was freedom of the press so important to those people back then?

Put yourself in their place. There would not have been an American Revolution without the press.

The only way to gather a group and continue to expand that group to the point where it’s large enough to stand up and declare its independence from the mother country and its government is to give them a reason to do it.

Without information there is no reason for the people to do anything or think anything outside the daily grind of their miserable lives as individuals just trying to get by.

It takes information to bring the people together as a group. People have a natural desire to know the news. “What’s going on?” That’s the question. It’s the responsibility of a free press to provide that answer.

Of course delivering the news is only part of it. It is also the responsibility of the press to stir up the pure mind. In my opinion, the greatest single figure of the American Revolution was the pamphleteer, Thomas Paine.

If I had to name the true father of this country, it would be him. He stirred up the pure mind with ideas and argued for complete independence from England before it became mainstream thinking. He electrified the countryside with his words that were read in the churches and town squares and sold on the street corners.

His pamphlets, his reasoning and his common sense arguments for revolution and freedom inspired George Washington to the extent that he asked Paine to write one for his soldiers. It was the first of the Crisis pamphlets, the “Winter Soldiers” speech with the line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Washington ordered it read to the army in the field.

So Washington and the other Founding Fathers went on to glory and Paine went on to die alone and destitute.

But that doesn’t change it for me. I still believe that it was Paine and the power of his pen that was the driving force that turned the people into revolutionaries and brought them together in a big bunch crying out for freedom, risking their lives and whatever fortunes they had in order to gain their independence from England.

I don’t think Paine has ever gotten the true credit he deserves, but I believe the Founding Fathers knew how important he was to the revolution, and how important the press was in general with helping to bring about the revolution and helping the people maintain their freedom once it had been achieved and victory won.

That’s why freedom of the press is listed in the First Amendment, prohibiting Congress from making any laws that would abridge that freedom or the freedom of speech.

The press was that important, not only in bringing about the revolution but in maintaining the freedoms won by the revolution, such as those other First Amendment rights prohibiting Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of it, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The thing that made Thomas Paine such a powerful force in the establishment of America was his ability to articulate the desire of the human heart to be free. His eloquence was so pure and simple, it spoke to the high and low, from the richest man in the country to the poorest dirt farmer. He stirred the hearts of men and women, the young and the old.

Besides a great mind, Paine had a great heart and great courage and a great ability to make people think and realize the simple truth that if they wanted to be free they would have to free themselves, as a group, even at the cost of their lives, by fighting the British and winning their liberty.

The man himself may have died alone and penniless and unsung but his song is still being sung. Freedom is still the song of America and it is still the hope of America. The Revolution that Paine struck a match to has never really gone out, but still burns in the individual hearts of those who are not free, both here and around the world.

The desire for freedom still burns in the hearts of those Americans who can see the rusting away and corrosion of their freedoms. It burns in the hearts of those who want more freedom and it burns in the hearts of those who have been denied their equal freedoms as human beings along with the rest.

continued below.