LIMITS ERODE OUR FREEDOM TO SET BOUNDARIES

The nation, having just celebrated another Independence Day, has been caught up in a patriotic mood, one that that extolls the freedom and liberty of being an American.

But, at the same time, a nationwide survey by a respected organization that exists to promote the First Amendment shows a majority of Americans believe in free speech only if they don't find it offensive. And about half of those polled said the press has too much freedom.

Both freedom of speech and freedom of the press -- along with freedom of religion, the freedom to assemble peacefully and the freedom to petition the government -- are protected by the First Amendment, which reads:

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 peacefully to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When the Founding Fathers wrote and adopted the First Amendment, there was no way to imagine the issues of the 21st century nor the many means of communicating ideas besides the printed word: radio, television, telephones, Internet. So perhaps those of us in the here and now ought not to be surprised that today's Americans find it hard to give 100 percent support to the ideas expressed more than 200 years ago in the First Amendment.

When speech is offensive, it causes most of us to bristle. When speech becomes hateful, obscene or pornographic, we tend to draw lines and seek laws to limit such outrages. Yet every such law cracks the First Amendment's granite-hard durability.

Given the opportunity to weigh the merits of abortion rights for women, the Founders would have found it difficult to conceive of government's role, much less the need to sanction something so heinous and immoral. Conversely, today's Americans, given the opportunity to choose the words for the Bill of Rights the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, including the First Amendment would struggle to find a way to express a freedom so basic as speech with all the attendant limitations that a majority of just seem to want.

And every American needs to be reminded that the freedoms of the First Amendment belong to individuals, not to institutions. In other words, the freedom of religion belongs to you and me, not to some denomination or religious sect. The freedom of the press belongs to you and me, not to the news media, whose role is to provide the news -- without government interference -- to which each individual American is freely entitled.

When individuals or groups start drawing lines beyond which constitutional freedoms cannot go, they risk violating the Constitution so that, in the end, even the right to draw lines is eventually erased.