I. "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
II. This is an example of what American citizens said when exercising their right of free speech during the era of the Vietnam War.
III. The issue I've decided to speak about is the importance of our First Amendment rights.
IV. There are three areas of the First Amendment that I am going to discuss. Namely:
A. The right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for
B. The right of the press to print whatever they want.
C. And of course the right to practice the religion of your choice.
Transition: Loosely translated, the First Amendment states that any
citizen is guaranteed the right to believe what they want to believe,
practice any religion they choose, and speak out about what they agree
or disagree with. It is our right to assemble peaceably in protest (or
support) and, when all else fails, petition the government for change
I. The fact that we can "assemble peaceably and petition for a redress
of grievances", is a privilege that guarantees unto us the right to be
heard. Whether or not any progress is made is a different story, but we
are allowed in any case to bring our discontentment to light.
A. What if we were not allowed to gather together and speak our minds?
1. Such public displays of discontent are met with deadly force in other
2. In June of 1989, in the People's Republic of China, Tiananmen Square
was the site of such a demonstration by university students.
a. They were peacefully protesting for greater democracy and less
b. The uprising was quelled by the military, and the press was
conveniently blacked-out so that everything was cleaned up by the time
c. The true body count will never be known for certain.
B. What if the United States was run in the same manner?
...