As a Veteran, who has sacrificed and risked all for Our Constituition, Our Bill of Rights, Our Security, Safety, and Freedoms, I recognize there is a big difference between responsibilities that come with rights and laws restricting rights. I encourage all Americans and particularly all Troops to read and know what Our Troops swear to protect. It can be quite frustrating when Our Rights are abused, when the enemy or the media misuses Our Rights against us.
It can be tempting to propose a ban on those that abuse or misuse their "rights." It can be telling that some use their 1st Amendment rights to argue against others' 2nd or 5th or 10th Amendment rights, because they simply don't know what the Bill of Rights actually say.
Bill of Rights
Amendment I
"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."
Tennesse Taylor in commenting about a protest by a group with which he (and I) disagree states:
"They do have a right to be wrong. They have a right to believe in their misguided hatred. They have a right to speak about their hatred. They have a right to their religion. They have a right to protest. They do NOT have a right to interfere in the rights of others to practice religion."
And that is the bottom line: Their rights extend to the point that they negatively effect you. Your rights, afford you the right to be wrong and to let the world know just how wrong you are. Your rights do not afford you the right to infringe the rights of others, no matter how much you disagree with them. Your rights do not afford you the right to act illegally, though it does allow you the right to state your opinion that illegal acts should be legal or vice versa.
You have a right to be offended by my words and to state your offense at my words, but you don't have a right to stop me from stating my opinion that you find offensive. The 1st Amendment affords you the right to speak and the 5th affords you a right to be silent. Many people exercise the right they shouldn't. Many people speak when they should be silent and I was silent for a long time past when I should have spoken. I have a lot to say now as a result, but I learned a lot of things in my silent listening.
Meanwhile, I am now exercising my right to free speech, your right to a free press, by publishing the 'rest of the story," the part that the MSM refuses to tell. Does that give the AP the right to break their contract to the US Military while being protected by US Marines? No, they signed a contract with the US Government that in return for the protections offered them in a War Zone, they would not publish identifiable pictures of Our Troops in their dying moments. That is binding, legal document and Freedom of the Press does not release them from their legal obligations.
And even if they were not bound by that legal contract which they signed, I still have a right to use my free speech and your free press to call for financial penalties and general public shame on the AP for their actions. I do not have a right to infringe their rights outside of their legal obligations, but I do have a right to spend my money as I see fit. I therefore have a right to ask you to not fund the AP, but not a right to require you to spend your money where you see fit.
You have a right to abandon purchases for any advertiser with the AP. It is your money. Or you have a right to ignore any call for such and spend your money with anyone you please.
You have a right to pursue happiness, but not a right to attain it. You have a right to pursue riches but no guarantee to attain them. You have a right to call for legislation that isn't Constitutional without any knowledge of the Bill of Rights, but you'll just be spotlighted as ignorant if you don't know the Right you're trying to trample and would be better off using your 5th Amendment right to silence in such a case.
The MSM has a right to publish their opinions and select only denigrating stories to publish, and we (WOTN) have a right to call them on it, to publish the stories of American Honor, Generosity and Victory. We have a right to expose their slanted, partisan means and methods.
We don't always agree with the Generals but when we don't we explain why we think they're wrong or we apologize for being wrong about telling them they're wrong. But that last happened when we accepted an MSM accounting of what General Sanchez said in 2006, two websites ago. We (I) learned a valuable lesson in that MSM mischaracterization and yahoo deleted the entire cast of weblogs on which it was posted for their own reasons having nothing to do with the misstatement or the apology.