The power of the First Amendment

There are some passages in our nation's documents that stir me to my marrow, both with the gravity of their words at the time they were written and how they mean so much, still. That is how I feel about the First Amendment. When America was barely a sapling in the ground, it was planting an oak of an idea: valuing the ideas — and the voice — of its citizens. In 1791, the Revolutionary War was long over but the real revolution was just beginning: a country that allowed its people their own minds. The Constitution had been ratified just a few years before, but 10 amendments written by James Madison — the Bill of Rights, aimed at curtailing government power and protecting individual liberties — had finally been adopted. The first one enshrined freedoms that would become the cornerstone of our democracy: "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." This was a sea change. In England — where most of the Founding Fathers had ancestral roots, and throughout Europe — speaking out against lords or kings could mean public humiliation, financial ruin, imprisonment or death. The idea was that if no man's thoughts were bridled, then he could be trusted to follow whatever god he chose, or none, and the government would not choose for him. That same man, should he believe his government had swindled him, could take it up with the government. Imagine the headiness in that day and age, of a government that gave credence to an individual the right to express their own opinions. As an American, I've held to the promise of the First Amendment all my life, grateful to be a journalist. As a journalist, I've held to the protection of the First Amendment most of my working life, grateful to be an American. Thomas Jefferson knew the power of that idea. "The good sense of the American people is always going to be the greatest asset of the American government. Sometimes they might go astray, but they have the ability to right themselves. The people should always have the media to express opinions through," he wrote in a letter to Edward Carrington in 1787, four years before the adoption of the Bill of Rights. "The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." A country that upholds those things to its citizens is a country worth upholding. How very, very far we've come. This month, I've watched from afar as President Donald Trump announced with relish that he was banning reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, exiling them from the "people's house" for writing "fiction and lies." Trump gave no details, said they were "fake news," when asked, and posted on his social media that other news organizations could follow. "I don't want them in my office. I don't want them here," he said from the Oval Office shortly after his post. He referred to his directive as "the ban on the free press." The targeted outlets immediately sued, claiming his actions violated their constitutional rights. It was a tussle played out in embarrassing fashion all week at the White House. Fox News, ABC, CBS, halted coverage and print and radio organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR limited sharing in solidarity. In reaction, the White House launched Trump TV. America's would-be "king" and chief glory hound drew 8,000 viewers Monday before viewership dropped significantly in following days. By the end of the week, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the reporters be allowed back for now while the case — which he said the reporters are likely to win — winds its way through the courts. The White House seemed to buck that order immediately Thursday morning, prompting the judge to order the administration to respond in writing. The journalists' credentials were eventually restored, but not before some were blocked from covering the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House. American journalists, endowed with the right to question their government and speak freely, were barred from White House grounds. Chinese reporters, who answer only to a communist dictator and whose every word will be pre-approved before the citizenry can see it, were welcomed in. I've lived long enough to see regimes come and go around the world. We all live in an age of global news; we can sit comfortably here in America and know how terribly life goes for citizens living in the disastrous shadow of locked-down authoritarians across the world, no matter how restrictively controlled their media. We are not an ignorant people, unless we choose to avert our eyes. But what bothered me the most this week wasn't watching Washington. No. The grief I feel these days is on the homefront. It is seeing how many of my fellow countrymen seem so ready to defend to the teeth "our rights as Americans" that they've been told are endangered by others, then turn on whomever they are told to see as their enemy by a certain someone. For a long time now, it's been people like me and a lot of my friends and fellow journalists. It is exhausting, living in a country that calls journalists the "enemy of the people" because the president told them so. It has been astounding to me to see so many people I know exercise their Second Amendment rights so fervently they will own a personal armory and bear tattoos to their cause of personal freedoms, but denounce what I do, as if my profession wasn't so important to the Founders it was enshrined first. I've watched my country, my city, my state, turn somehow even angrier and more inward, throwing the name of the Christian God into political forums — the God I have followed since I was young — yet doing the opposite of everything he commands: feed the hungry, care for the sick and welcome the foreigner. And yet their version of Christ is the litmus test for righteousness, in a country that made it clear no religious test applies. The words of the First Amendment still give me chills. This country needs to recognize its full power. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.