Flag desecration

Objects such as the American Flag have become the center of controversy when it comes to people utilizing their right to freedom of speech. The First Amendment was put into place hundreds of years ago and it still lives strong today. Although that is a good thing, many people, including…

The Lemon Test- http://www.pewforum.org/2009/05/14/shifting-boundaries6/ Aguilar v. Felton (1985). Was a federal program that paid New York City public school teachers to provide remedial instruction to students who lived in low-income neighborhoods. The teachers delivered these services at public and private schools, a substantial number of which were religious. Aguilar required the government to monitor whether the government-funded teachers incorporated religious content into their secular…

The youth of today is the society of tomorrow; raise them right, and the world will go on to be a better place. In order to do so, they must have a safe environment brought about by the suppression of ideas, words, or images that are generally considered offensive; this concept is most widely known as censorship and can be. Critically acclaimed, George Orwell’s 1984 is one of the most popular examples of censorship taken too far. However, 1984 does make a few good points when it comes to what…

Steven Pinker, published author and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, wrote an article for the New York Times that was published on January 18, 2008. The article was titled “The Moral Instinct” and was an attempt to shed some light on how morality really works. The article begins with a jarring comparison of Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, and Norman Borlaug and how the average mind probably automatically associates Mother Theresa as the most admirable, although she…

“We the people” - The Bill of Rights is paramount to every single human being in the United States. It is the collection of every right a person has, and everyone should know their rights to protect themselves. The United States is slowly becoming less and less free, but not in a restrictive way, it is for the safety of its citizens. Terrorism became more apparent in our country after September 11th, and thus the Patriot Act was passed. This allowed the FBI to survey any suspected terrorist…

We know that some music is very provocative and offensive especially to the women of our society. These lyrics are opinions, viewpoints, and experiences that they have been through, witnessed or fantasized about and it is their right to say what they feel even if it’s offensive. If you don’t like that kind of music or it offends you, don’t listen to it . Here’s the funny part. When you go into a club or a social setting where these lyrics are being played, you will hear women singing right along…

In the film, The People vs. Larry Flynt the movie explores the life of Larry Flynt and the beginning of modern pornography. It also takes on a few other issues such as desecration of the flag and the protection against awarding damages to public figures of emotion distress. At this time in history there were laws against what could be shown in different types of media, in this case a magazine. This film goes to make the point whether pornography should be a type of media protected by the first…

involving the First Amendment. Johnson was enraged by the government and soaked a U.S. flag with kerosene and burned it outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas. He was arrested under a Texas law prohibiting the desecration of Texas and U.S. flags. Texas law placed an unconstitutional limit on “freedom of expression”, saying “nothing in our precedents suggests that a state may foster its own view of the flag by prohibiting expressive conduct relating to…

Imagine living life as a goldfish. From the very moment it’s life begins, the tiny, innocent specimen is engulfed in water. Given the ability to communicate with the goldfish, one might mention the presence of water. The response would be something along the lines of: “Water? What is that?”. Even though the goldfish relies on water for survival, it would not be aware of it’s surroundings. When confronted with this observation, the goldfish might become defensive or taken aback. “Water isn’t…

Do you ever worry if your family will have access to clean drinking water tomorrow? If your mother or father’s final resting place will be bulldozed, excavated, and defiled? These hypothetical questions posed to you are the realities of the Standing Rock Sioux Native American Tribe right now. The Dakota Access Pipeline debate as to whether or not it should be relocated from the Sioux Native American reservation is presently taking place due to its construction being merely half of a mile…