As a high school counselor I read many essays written by seniors who are applying at various universities, hoping their thoughts will persuade the admissions officers to grant them entrance. I was impressed by a recent composition wherein a young woman wrote:

"I don't want to go to college just to take classes, graduate and get a job. I want to taste the reality of knowledge as I drink it in. I want to sit in a quiet library and think about the meaning of life. I want to debate with friends about current Constitutional issues. And I want to write poetry in the shade of an old autumn tree."

This young woman's desires are a beautiful example of the human need for free expression and why free expression matters. It matters because it encourages mental growth and character development. She will learn who she is because she lives in a country where she is free to take the journey to self-discovery. Her self-discovery is made possible because our American founders had enough faith in human nature to set up a system of government based on liberty of conscience and the freedom to explore new ideas.

Our founders tried a "Great Experiment" by breaking the bonds from religion, believing that it was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having and maintaining good government.

They had hope--hope that citizens, left to their own particular ways will behave well toward one another. Their belief in potential human virtue underlies the whole idea in the Bill of Rights. (Life Magazine, Fall 1991)

But because human nature has a dark side, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary" (James Madison), the early Americans also chose to have a Bill of Rights attached to their Constitution. It was the mechanism created for protecting what they believe to be the fundamental human rights - rights to which human beings are entitled simply by having been born human.

Speech, Press, Religion, and Assembly.

These great freedoms encompassed in the First Amendment were conceived to be the most valuable. James Madison believed:

Conscience is the most sacred of all property, being a natural and unalienable right. Government can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged.

The freedoms are the "zones of freedom into which the majority was forbidden entry. The Bill of Rights marks those boundaries and zones. It sets legal limits of government's power" (Ira Glasser, "Civil Liberties" 1991).

Practicing the principles in the Bill of Rights is a fairly recent happening:

For over 150 years the Bill of Rights was paid lip service in patriotic orations and ignored in the marketplace. It wasn't until after World War I that the Supreme Court began the process of giving real meaning to the Bill of Rights (Life).

In the 1950s we had the liberal Supreme Court which used its influence to expand the rights of individuals against government.

It was a force that ended to thwart the established power. Today's Supreme Court gives the government great latitude; it prefers to ratify choices made by those already in power (Newsweek, July 8, 1991).

The court is also reversing precedent. Judge Rehnquist wrote, "Adherence to precedent is the preferred course, but not an inexorable demand."

It is clear that our attention must now be directed toward state legislative bodies and state supreme courts. This will be difficult in Utah, because the overwhelming majority (90%) of our legislators are of one religion, which is authoritarian and patriarchal in nature.

If we as humanists believe that the Bill of Rights was adopted to protect individual freedoms from the tyranny of the majority, then we must become resolute.

We must remember that the American people's resolve and resistance are what will determine the course of liberty from now into the next century. The Bill of Rights today is about those people who work to bring our ideals into line, about those who are willing to fight, often at great personal risk and sacrifice, to claim the rights that they have been denied. It is about persistence and stamina, and efforts to transform the principle of liberty in to the practice of liberty (Glasser).

In all our idealism, we Americans must remember that our system of government is fallible. Innocent people have been hurt and punished for crimes they did not commit. But it is the best system thus far. As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others." We can only hope to refine its principles through humanistic practices.

As humanists we can celebrate this 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights by:

Rededicating ourselves to the habits of free inquiry, skeptical scrutiny, exposure of government actions to public view and support for the right to express all opinions including, especially, those we find personally distasteful.

In a democracy, opinions that upset everyone are sometimes exactly what we need .... We should also be teaching our children the scientific method and the Bill of Rights (Carl Sagan, Parade Magazine, April 8, 1991)

We as humanists must make sure that our children understand why our civil liberties are essential, not only so they can feel free to "write poetry in the shade of an old Autumn tree," but to preserve the original ideals an enliven America's soul.

--Nancy Moore