Reflections On The First Amendment

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Reflections on the First Amendment Peggy Robb His-301 January 19, 2012 Reflections on the First Amendment “The deep idea of the First Amendment is that people should tell the government what to do and not the other way around” (Annenberg, 2010). The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of government interference. Citizens of the United States of America are given the right of religion, speech, press, assembly, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment rights should never be compromised. Because people differ in their interpretation of these rights, conflicts arise that need to be settled by the Supreme Court. The Right of Privacy The right to privacy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. However, Supreme Court decisions have established that the right to privacy is a basic human right. By virtue the basic human right is protected by the Ninth Amendment - certain rights cannot deny or belittle others. In addition to this amendment, the right to privacy is by the very nature a part of the Third and Fourth Amendment that protect against search and seizure and the Fifth Amendment that protects against self-incrimination. The general right of privacy will continue to be recognized by the Supreme Court as penned out by the Bill of Rights. In the 1920s, the Supreme Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment liberty clause to bar states from deliberately becoming involved with the decisions of professional educators and parents to mold the way in which their children are educated. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), the Supreme Court ruled against a law that banned the teaching of foreign languages to students until the ninth grade. Even though the states argued “that the foreign languages could lead to instilling ideas and sentiments foreign to the best interest of this country” (The
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