“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work, reporting or approval of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com.
Be Loud for the First Amendment
A perspective from Mark Bell, Tom Stevens and Jenn Weaver
In 1788, North Carolina delegates gathered in Hillsborough, Orange County for a convention to decide whether to ratify the newly proposed Constitution. Heated debate ensued between the Federalists and Antifederalists, the latter concerned with ratifying a Constitution they felt did not adequately protect individual rights. Long story short, the Federalists suffered a resounding defeat at the Constitutional Convention in Hillsborough, with a hundred-plus vote margin refusing to ratify without protection of those individual rights. North Carolina ultimately waited to ratify the U.S. Constitution until the following year when it included the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution.
The First Amendment reads: “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.” The right to freedom of speech, and the freedom to criticize the government, is essential for any functioning democracy. The First Amendment was crucial to making the Constitution better with additional amendments that eventually moved us to a more perfect union by ensuring this binding document applied more equally to everyone.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of our country’s birth, we should be celebrating the vision and promise of the Constitution that binds our states together and protects its people from government oppression. Instead, we find ourselves in one of the darkest times in our nation’s history with the most powerful elected official in the United States using his power – through his own verbal threats and through the actions of his political appointees – to take the jobs and suppress the speech of people who say things that hurt his feelings or he finds disagreeable. No American should celebrate this. We should all be horrified.
Every elected official, from a small town mayor to the President and everyone in between, swears an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The feeling of taking that oath for the first time is a sobering one – or at least it should be. As the words are uttered out loud, the gravity of the responsibility one has undertaken becomes real. The election is over, and now your responsibility isn’t just to your supporters, but to all the people in the jurisdiction you represent. You know that you will make decisions that not everyone will like, that will make people angry and even make them say mean or unfair things about you, but you are still bound by oath to ensure the rights of the people are upheld and respected, even of the people you don’t especially like and who don’t like you.
The majority of elected officials find a way to do this, even when it is hard. It is time for all elected officials of every political stripe to speak loudly in support of the First Amendment and the right to criticize the government. Our country and our democracy depend on it.
Hillsborough Mayor Mark Bell
Former Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens
Former Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
