July 4th
Today we celebrate declaring independence from the British Crown and the onset of a 235-year experiment with a government designed to ensure freedom and liberty for its citizenry.
It’s important to remember government’s role is to “ensure” not “bestow” the beliefs outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Back in the early 1990s, my students and I at Troy State University pondered ways to raise money for the Society of Professional Journalists’ Legal Defense Fund. The fund, all private donations, primarily gets used to support the legal battles of individual journalists and to support cases where journalists seek access to government records.
We decided to sell T-shirts. I came up with this verbiage: “Talk is cheap, free speech isn’t. Support SPJ’s Legal Defense Fund.”
