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| Welcome to the land of the free, home of the brave. Welcome to a world where we pay our taxes, walk our dogs, and help our landlady carry out her garbage. We have the power of opinion. We may believe whatever we want to believe, as long as our beliefs do not infringe on the rights of any other single person.
According to the courts, free speech exists in principle and not in fact. If what we say did not disturb anyone, it would most certainly go unnoticed. Yet that one parent, that single watcher, may destroy al rights that were previously bestowed. In the Roland-Story High School, amongst small town values and a simpler kind of people, lies a new wave.
Do the youth rebel just to distance themselves from these adults that have tried to protect them all these years. In all these years of protection, do these children become sheltered? Can a student make sexual innuendos to a younger class? They will learn it sooner or later. Is sooner better than later? The real world may overwhelm them without ever being exposed to it.
At what point in our lives do we become adults? The question is not what is inappropriate for children; it is what is inappropriate for adults. These children must learn what is going on at some point. The younger generation may be less offended by lewd behavior. Or at least they are not as afraid to accept it.
What would our residual self-image be like in a world where the judges had power. There is this illusion that the executive, judiciary, and legislative sectors have power. Yet none of it is lasting. We have a new president every four years. Congress, supreme, court justices, House of Representatives, are all changing. None of them are perfect. None of the will ever be perfect. That is what is expected of them though. Always trying to relate to a generation fifty years younger than themselves.
It is said that neither the students nor the teachers shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. And that undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.
The rights of the individual will always change. Each new justice will interpret the constitution in a new way. Laws will change with the times, or slightly behind anyway. What is deemed inappropriate now may seem commonplace ten years from now. But we dont know that. We still struggle to comprehend a document that was written over 200 years ago. It seems to have worked up to now. Amendments change it to fit the time. My parents might shelter me from the truth if they could. Any parent might do the same. Doing whatever they believe is right. Yet in 40 to 50 years, we will be deciding what is right. This generation will decide what can go in its grandkids newspapers. And our grandkids will fight the same way we had. Another fifty years will pass and our grandkids will make new rules for their grandkids.
Isnt it a scary idea that we have become so much more liberal than our grandparents? If that trend continues, what are our great-grandkids going to fight us over.
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