Which+Amendment+is+More+Important?

Which is the Most Important Amendment? By Harrison Pyros A question debated nation wide by students and historians alike: Which is the most important amendment to the Bill of Rights? In my opinion, it is the first one. The First Amendment covers Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, and Freedom of Assembly and Petition. In the following paragraphs, I will give my reasons and evidence on why I chose this specific amendment and I will try and persuade you to agree with me.

Before I go into all the specifics of the amendment and why it is more monumental than all the others, let’s look at the big picture. There is something about the importance of First Amendment that you could notice without knowing a single thing about our government: the First Amendment is first. The most significant thing goes first. Everyone remembers the first. You don’t believe me? Fine, name the second man who walked on the moon. You don’t know right? Most people don’t. And the same goes for the amendments. I didn’t know what the second amendment was until my class started studying our government, but I knew the first one long before. And our Founding Fathers probably did this on purpose. Knowing that most common people at the time wouldn’t read all of the Bill of Rights, they put the most important first so you read them before you put down the copy of the Bill of Rights. So now that we have the obvious stated and through with, we can move on to the more in-depth details.

You have grown up in a country where you have rights of free speech, religion, press, assembly and petition, but as you know, it wasn’t always like this. And as you also probably know, there are still countries today that deny their citizens these rights. So imagine this: You are a citizen in a city who practices the religion of Islam. One day, you are praying at one of your five required times of the day when your door is suddenly flung open. You stand up alarmed and stare at the group of police officers who have just barged into your house. One of them comes forward and points a weapon in your face. He says they have been tipped off that you were practicing a religion that was not Catholic and he demands you leave the city or convert. He spits insults at your religion and calls it untrue and vile, all the while calling the Catholic religion the only true culture. You try to speak up, but are silenced by his bark and he reminds you that you have no right to speak. He gives you a required time to leave and then he and the others leave you.

You have no freedom of speech or religion. Something must be done. You go to the newspaper building and tell them about what has happened to you. You demand that they have to share this news of unfairness and cruelty to the other citizens, but they tell you they cannot. They are run by the government. The government tells them what to print and what not to say. You bring up protest, though you already know the answer, they tell you protest is also against the law. You leave the city with your wife and children. You have no job, no food, and no shelter. The other cities are like this too: they will not tolerate non-Catholics. And in the end, you cannot provide for your family, or even for yourself, and you starve. This will be the fate of many when the rights of speech, religion, protest, and press are taken away. Just look at what happened with the Jews in Word War II or back in the Middle Ages when non-Catholics were thrown out of Spain. To be blunt, the deprivation of these rights kill people. Not to mention, they are unfair, unjust, and I hold them to be Natural Rights.

But what about the importance of the other amendments? Like the Second Amendment: The Rights to Bear Arms. This was created to make sure the citizens could revolt against a corrupt government. So let me state the obvious again: what makes you think a government who denies their citizens the First Amendment rights will give them the Second Amendment right? They are tyrants and they want to make sure that the people they are ruling over have absolutely no chance of overthrowing them, so they take away their weapons. And overthrowing a corrupt government doesn’t just suddenly spring up. All the citizens don’t just suddenly charge the capital with pitchforks and torches. Most revolts start verbally and peacefully, and build up to a war and rebellion. A blaring example is what happened with our own country. We didn’t just decide to start shooting Redcoats when we were given a tax. We spoke up, and through years and years of arguments and peaceful rebellion, like boycotting and I guess you could call the Boston Tea Party somewhat peaceful since no one was physically harmed, we finally broke into a war. But we had the Freedom of Speech and Assembly and Petition, so some of the problems were fixed, just not enough to satisfy us. But if you don’t, well, you’re kind of stuck. You don’t have a voice, and the leaders are the same corrupt leaders who are out there just for the profit of themselves, so barely anything good for the people ever gets done. For example, when Russia was the Soviet Union it’s economy was terrible. So the independent states that made up the Soviet Union tried to break away from Mother Russia for political, economic, and freedom reasons. In the process of the Soviet Union breaking up, there was some violence, but this violence was encouraged by the breaking away states, not set up in secret by the people. And it was not as near as dramatic as the Revolutionary War was. They did not break away with a huge bang. On the contrary some states separated from Mother Russia rather peacefully. So what is the point of having arms or guns in a situation like this? They did nothing. Having the weapons at hand might give a slight feeling of reassurance and maybe some confidence, but a pen and paper and a declaration for freedom had more power in that situation. So I rest my case, the First Amendment will //always// be the most powerful above the rest, no matter what the situation.

To sum up this debate, the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights will be superior to all the others. I have given substantial evidence, reasons, and examples for why I know this statement is true. And it will stay like this, the First Amendment being the greatest, because it gives us, the American people, the freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly and petition, and those will always be the most remembered and cherished. No matter what.

=**NOTE: The religions used in this essay where merely examples. I don’t hold anything against non-Catholics, Catholics, or Muslims. Okay, just wanted to make sure you knew…**=