The process of critical thinking logically demands a fair, open-mind that gathers information and ultimately renders a disinterested opinion. Not a cold, heartless opinion, but one bonded to a warm, human sympathy for people. A true critical thinker, in continuity then, is anchored to a moral foundation that serves as a gravitational ballast giving selfless allegiance, without prejudice, to a naturally good set of moral principles.
“…my fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
President John F. Kennedy,
Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
In the United States of America, we have these founding documents that we call our Constitution. These are: the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The ideas within these two documents are the gravitational ballast of America; being written in such manner that a diverse people, with our many ethnicities, religions, creeds, and walks of life, can find solidarity in the shared ideas therein, and in that sense, we are this national community singularly brought together to live in peace upon our agreement, or consent to the natural, fundamental thoughts: that we are created equal, that we have a right to our life, and to protect that life and our family, that we have a right to live in peace and to be happy, that we have a right to share ideas with one another, to speak freely, and to form a representative government made of us and for us.
To defend these liberties, we must be aware of them first. We must understand the founders of our government, and it is our duty to be acquainted with the disinterested, critical thinking defenders of American liberty. These are the few men and women whom through each generation we have been fortunate to have. They can be known through their works, and are shining champions to each generation.
Their cause was that of the right of the people to self-govern themselves, AS LONG AS THE INDIVIDUAL ALSO RESPECTED THE RIGHT OF SELF GOVERNMENT FOR ALL OTHER INDIVIDUALS, that there be that liberty and justice for all.
The understanding that it is our duty as a people to ensure a disinterested, critically thinking education to each American generation is the beginning of our journey to defend the promise of that ballast of natural, moral law known as our Declaration of Independence.
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| Lincoln Monument upon its completion |
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Is it constitutional that, if it were possible, that we have the right to foreclose on the national conversation if we do not agree with one another, and in foreclosing and disallowing the sharing and flow of ideas amongst the people, allowing one set of ideas to be the ‘loudest’ in the national conversation?
In 2021, the prevalence of internet communication networks, including, but not limited to what are ‘micro-blogging’ websites (Twitter, Facebook), have at first, given a platform of speech to the people, and yet, in U.S. Congressional meetings, the chief executive officers of these are being asked why there are methods and tactics aimed at indirectly oppressing the communications of people who disagree with the political view points of the internet communication networking companies.
In the below excerpt from a Supreme Court opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas puts forth the idea that digital platforms may be subject government regulation.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, April 5, 2021:
“Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors. Also unprecedented, however, is control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties,”
“We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.”
there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communica- tions networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers.
Much like with a communications utility, this concentration gives some digital platforms enormous control over speech.
It can suppress content by deindexing or downlisting a search result or by steering users away from certain content by manually altering autocomplete results. Grind, Schechner, McMillan, & West, How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 15, 2019.
Facebook and Twitter can greatly narrow a person’s information flow through similar means.
It changes nothing that these platforms are not the sole means for distributing speech or information.
“[I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ” digital platforms. Turner, 512 U. S., at 684 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040521zor_3204.pdf
As it pertains to the disinterested protection of the hearts & mind of the people to be a civil society of altruist, critical thinkers; logically open-minded and independent in thought, without bias or prejudice, anchored in the understanding of that American Constitutional ballast of shared national ideas with a solemness of human sympathy, nothing is more nationally important.
“Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith?
Abraham Lincoln
As a senator, our 16th president exemplified in heart & mind, the utter importance of knowing what is that spirit of liberty & justice. Read his writings to discover the intellectual agility employed as he destroys the argument for slavery and the economy founded on it. Understand the strength and endurance of mind as he “struck in the direction of the sound” of the institution of slavery, and the determination of his heart to stand for the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Wherein will we have Americans with such dynamic strength of gentle hearts and sharp minds today?
Will our public schools produce these? How shall the educational upbringing of each American generation give us these pillars to compliment Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass? Wherein will we find the sophistication and grit of Abigail Adams?
Abraham Lincoln on slavery, from his Speech on Kansas-Nebraska Act, October 16, 1854:
“…we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a “sacred right of self-government.”
Is it not so that the lack of a solid education that teaches us this strength of civil, caring citizenship ultimately destroys the foundational pillars of our society? Indoctrinating a declared indifference through educational default?
Why would we want to weaken the true power of the foundation of America? A straightforward understanding of our fundamental civil liberty, that in the right knowledge, we may know how to be defenders of the ideas written in our Declaration of Independence.
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