Active Advocates

by Victoria Ison



We act like being informed is enough.

We act like if we put up enough posters, write enough blog posts, and bring it up enough times in conversation, then the first amendment won’t be forgotten, and it won’t be threatened.

Except we’re only acting.

It doesn’t matter how much we advertise if nobody pays attention. If everybody walks by the posters in the hallway, if nobody clicks on to this blog, if listeners close their ears when we talk about the first amendment, then our freedoms, while not made meaningless, lose power.

It is not enough to pretend that advertising is enough.

While there is certainly much meaning in the simple act of exercising the freedoms of speech and assembly and press and all those that the first amendment encompasses, there is much more meaning associated with the appropriate reception of the actions by which we exercise those freedoms.

For instance, it is one thing just to talk. Talking out loud is important. It can help a person work through his or her thoughts and feelings. But just talking can never be as meaningful as speaking. Speaking, to and with other people, allows room for outside input. It leads to meaningful conversation. Talking is passive; speaking is active.

We must be active advocates for the first amendment.

We can not just put up posters and hope that someday somebody walking by will stop, see the poster, read it, and think about the importance of the freedoms this amendment ensures. This may very well happen from time to time, but it will not happen every time.

Certainly, putting up posters is an excellent thing to do, an excellent way to advertise something that needs and merits but doesn’t exactly demand advertisement. Sometimes putting up posters, or performing whatever other kind of passive advertisement, is the appropriate thing to do.

But sometimes we need to do more.

Just as we would want our newspapers, our petitions, our assemblies – all of the things we are able to produce through the powers of the first amendment – to be heeded attentively and respectfully, we should want our expressions about the first amendment received with soberness. Just as we would create our newspapers and petitions worthy of that reception, we must write and speak and advertise about the first amendment in a way that is worthy of the attention we hope it will receive.

If we want to ensure the preservation of the rights given in the first amendment, we must advocate actively for them.