Much has been written on the opinion pages this semester about free speech. A group called the Second Wave was formed to expand free speech rights on campus.

Scott Johnson, president of the Objectivists at ISU, responded to a column by Brian Johnson by writing: “Brian, when you write your column, remember where that First Amendment protecting your free speech came from lest you be damned as the hypocrite you are!” (Daily, Feb. 25) Scott Johnson was referring to the fact that the First Amendment came from the “founding fathers,” that illustrious gaggle of rich merchants, land and currency speculators, and slave holders.

But we were never “given” what freedoms we do have, certainly not by the framers of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was not part of the original constitution. When Colonel Mason of Virginia proposed a Bill of Rights at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, it was voted down almost unanimously. Land seizures by the poor, food riots, and popular protests (most of the population was poor at the time — which is rarely mentioned in the history books) made the men of property who gathered in Philadelphia desire a strong central government to protect the propertied classes, and they also set a limit on what t the government could do.

The Bill of Rights was a reluctant concession the founders made under threat of democratic rebellion. (see Charles Beard, “An Economic Interpretation of the United States” and “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn.)

The First Amendment, signed into law in 1791, says, among other things: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …” Seven years later, in 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798 which abridged the freedom of speech and the press. Many speakers and writers who criticized the government were sent to jail. Now we all learned in junior high school about how we have checks and balances and how the Supreme Court will check the Congress by declaring laws which violate the Constitution unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court at the time, who apparently skipped junior high school, or maybe they understood that the phrase “checks and balances” is just intended to satisfy kids in school — didn’t declare the Sedition Act unconstitutional.

Then in 1917, the United States fought in World War I. The Espionage Act was passed which said that you couldn’t criticize the war. I’m in favor of national security. Who isn’t? But that term has been used as an excuse for far too much government secrecy and repression of dissidents over the years. At one point on Nixon’s Watergate tapes, he says to H.R. Haldeman: “What’ll we do, what’ll we do, gee what’ll we say, what are they going to ask me?” Haldeman replies, “Say it’s national security.”

A debate was scheduled at Harvard a few years ago between Alan Dershowitz, a Zionist and strong supporter of Israel, and a guy named Terzi, who represents the PLO at the U.N. That would be pretty cool — PLO vs. Zionist at Harvard. But the State Department went to court to prevent Terzsi from taking part in the debate. National security is invoked to keep people out of the United States — playwrights, Nobel prizewinners and writers.

They might have serious criticism of U.S. policy and we can’t have that — we can ONLY be allowed to listen to the “best and brightest,” those brilliant war criminals like Henry Kissinger — criminals who are so determined that they won’t let pesky things like the Constitution or the lives of millions of people stand in the way of their goals.

A few years ago, a CIA employee named Ray Cline was asked if the CIA, by its surveillance of protest organizations in the United States, was violating the First Amendment. He smiled and said: “It’s only an amendment.”

When an FBI official was asked if anyone in the FBI ever questioned the legality of their repeated violations of citizens’ rights, he replied: “No, we never gave it a thought.”

It’s good to have the First Amendment, but words on paper are not enough. Time and time again throughout history, free speech rights have been violated. If we sit back and leave the Bill of Rights up to the government, it’ll be left for dead. Government big-wigs will act like that CIA guy and say, “Ah, it’s only an amendment.” But people have breathed life into the Bill of Rights throughout history.

People like Mary Beth Tinker, a 13-year-old girl in Des Moines who went to school wearing a black arm band in protest of the killing in Vietnam, and defied school authorities even when they suspended her. Or how about the nine-year-old black boy, arrested in Albany, Ga., in 1961 for marching in a parade against racial segregation after the police said the parade was unlawful. The police chief asked him, “What’s your name?” He replied, “Freedom, freedom.”

In 1985, 550 people occupied the JFK Federal Building in Boston when President Reagan declared a blockade of Nicaragua. The official charge against the protesters was the language of an old trespass law: “failure to quit the premises.” On the letter historian Howard Zinn received dropping the charges (because there were too many people to deal with) they shortened the charge to “failure to quit.”

I hope the Second Wave movement will fail to quit, that they will organize to challenge all these lame university rules that say you need a permit to give speeches and pass out literature on campus.

Free speech needs less abstract admiration and more spirited usage. It’s like a muscle that needs to be worked-out. As with the physical body, so with the body politic. Use it or lose it.

Drew Chebuhar is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Muscatine who welcomes feedback at [email protected].