The Bill of Rights were written by wise men who wanted their meanings to be precise, and not subject to “interpretation” by the “lawyers” among us.  Because this is the case, simple dictionary definitions (from 1792) can be used to find what rights our founders were trying to protect.

It is important to realize that these 10 amendments to the Constitution are US law that supersedes all other law, regulation, custom and interpretation of law, Federal or State that have been passed in the last 225 years.  Also note that or constitution is based on the concept of “Natural Law“, which holds that any rights that mankind has are not given to them by governments, kings, or laws written by men. They are inherent, by their being, and given to them by “nature, and nature’s God”.  So any rights written in the constitutional amendments are not given by the government but protected FROM government BY the amendment.

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.

“Congress shall make no law” is very clear.  The legislative body of the federal government is not to make, create, propose or debate any law in regards to the subject of the amendment.  All bodies of government other than congress are also subject to this restriction in that all other executive, judicial, and legislative bodies in this country are as bound to the constitution as the Federal Congress which is otherwise supreme in it’s ability to make law.
Any law that is made in opposition to this amendment is therefore superseded by this amendment and is no law.

“respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” “Respecting” is considering, in view of, about. “Establishment” means in a government way, to institutionalize or make official, so in other words, no “official” government approved religion. “Prohibiting the free exercise” means what it says precisely: no law that prohibits, excludes, or denies the free excise of any religion.  Secularists and atheists commonly trip all over the second part of this and think that a high school coach praying at a ball game with his team is the same as “establishing” a religion, when it is simple “free exercise”. Nowhere does the constitution define “where or when” to exercise your religion, but the opposite.  “Free exercise” means anywhere and any time.

We are told, by many who would deny rights to people they don’t agree with, that there are “reasonable limits” to “free exercise”.  There are, but not in the way they usually mean “reasonable”.  More in the way that “your right to swing your fist ends at my chin”.
Rights are given to men by “Natural Law” and consist of three basic rights:
1. the right to life. “Nature” gave a person their life, therefore they have the right to keep it and protect it.
2. the right to liberty. “Nature” gave people their mobility, their mind, and their free will, therefore they have the right to keep them, and protect them.
3. the right to own property. “Nature” gave people hands, and ability to create, work, grow crops, build structures and hold onto and develop land.  Therefore they have the right to keep and protect the fruit of their labor, and to buy, sell or trade their own for another person’s if they so desire.
There is also a very important 4th right that gets little mention: the right to refuse. The right to say no, which is really just an aspect of liberty.  Because you have the right to do pretty much as you please, you also have the right to not do what another person would have you do.

This is where the limits of “free exercise” exists. Does what your religion require that you interfere with another person’s right to life? Liberty? Property? Does it compel another to act in a way they would not want to? If the answer is no all, then there are no “reasonable” limits to that freedom.  The a fore mentioned high school coach has every right to pray wherever he wants, and every member of his team has the right to pray with him, or not to pray, as they will.
Secularists, atheists and “progressives” will often offer a strawman argument “freedom from religion”, in which they claim that a person should not have to view, hear or otherwise be subjected to the “free exercise” of a person’s religion.  But no “freedom” would compel another to give up their freedom, and any so called “right” that compels another to do their bidding against their will and conscience is not a right, but an infringement.

“or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;”  to “abridge” is to limit, restrict, seize, strip, or take away, but not to shorten as in an abridged book.  Freedom of speech means freedom to speak your mind verbally in public.  Freedom of the press means to publish your thoughts and words in written form for the public to read them.  “The press” is not some fictional “forth estate” composed of “journalists” as some would say.  There is no “legitimate press” with credentials that is created by this individual right.  Yes, it is an individual right, protected for each person as an individual, so that everyone who can write, anything, news stories, opinion, short stories, books, fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, insane ramblings, has the right to publish it for others to read.

The printing and publishing industry has long been a gatekeeper of sorts.  There was until recently a high “entry fee” for people to self publish their thoughts, opinions, political theories, and often individual voices have been drowned out by companies that “buy ink by the barrel”.  Electronic media such as television, and radio have also had high startup costs involved, and many many intrusive government regulations making it impossible for small concerns in many cases.  What was meant to be an individual right to publish everything from political tracks to major thousand page books became either a vanity hobby of a few wealthy aristocrats, or profit making book publishing and selling and print “news” papers.
William Randolph Hearst was not Paul Revere or Thomas Paine.  Common Sense would never have been published.  Still isn’t for the most part, reading the print media now days.

But print media, once the massive corporate monopoly dispenser of “news” and information slowly but surely gave way to electronic media such as radio, then television.  Though very few actual individual stations in either have survived unsold and unsullied, and 90% of all “news and entertainment” is owned by only 6 multinational corporation, even that had to give way eventually to the internet.
It has been said, of course by people who want to limit this individual freedom, that “dangerous misinformation”, “fake news” and “foreign propaganda” is spread on the internet.  Guess who the bulk of those people work for?

<next part two “Free speech and redressing grievances without getting beat up”>