Reading the Constitution (or not)
I bet that there are a few 10-year-old political geeks who carry a copy of the Constitution in their pocketses. I carry one on my phone. I bet that most of those 10-year-olds can quickly find whatever they want to in their copies of the Constitution a lot quicker than yer fav-o-rite blahgger found “freedom of the press” in her phone app today. I am not comparing pocket-sized paper copies of the Constitution to the iPhone app. I am comparing the truth that any 10-year-old kid who bothers to carry the Constitution in their pocket has a much better grasp of what is *in* the Constitution than yer fav-o-rite blahgger does.
I’m sorry. I remember taking government class in high school. I know that I probably aced that class. I am an A student. When I went back to college at 50, somebody somewhere suggested that it might be hard for me to go back to school at 50 and I shouldn’t feel bad if I failed the mid-term exam. I kept my mouth clamped shut from saying, “I am not gonna fail the mid-term exam.” Guess what. I aced the damn mid-term exam. I am not bragging. That’s just who I am. And that aspect of who I am has its problems but that’d be a whole ‘nother blahg entry.
So I know that I learned all about government and the Constitution waaaay back in the Jurassic Age and probably aced a test or two or three about it. Do I remember anything about it? Well, yeah, sorta. Lemme see, there is freedom of speech and the right to bear arms (or is it the right to arm bares bears), and and and… Back then I was more interested in clothes and boyz and advanced mathematics (yes, really) and whatever virtuoso flute music I could manage to get my hands on. I was a mixed bag then and I still am except that I am now an old bag and I have a baggy old boyfriend and we have adult children together so don’t bother me.
Freedom of the press… We have slipped into calling the “press” the “media” lately. The “press”/”media” is changing. We have many many more options for getting news nowadays than the dead tree thing that thunks into the driveway at 0-skunk-30. Some of those options are fact-based and some not so much and it is really hard to sift through all of this stuff to figure out what is fact or alternative fact lies or just crappy reporting.
But we have to do that. We have to decide whether or not online “news” “sources” are real or not. We need to teach our children to do that too. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it propaganda? Or merely slanted? Let’s go back and read the Constitution and try to process what our country’s founders wrote and how it might apply to today’s world. Because after my short perusal of the Bill of Rights today, I think freedom of the press still applies. I hope our new president isn’t trying to challenge that just because the “press” sometimes challenges him. Think about this, my friends.
Love, KW