Comments about ‘My view: Why freedom works in America’

"It's better to be good and kind than to not". --Steve Martin in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"

(I'm going by memory so it might be a paraphrase.)

"A symphony orchestra must have a conductor; if every instrument played what it wanted there would be only discord."

Exactly, it is the free choice of willing and disciplined musicians that contributes to the "harmonious" musical performance of an orchestra, NOT just the imposed will of a conductor. Imagine that, a people who can breath on their own.

I'm sorry but to believe that a people who just went through a bloody revolution a year ago are afraid of freedom is first of all naive, and secondly dangerous because it's the very self centered thinking that leads to invasions of other countries who don't think like us. Let me run with the orchestra metaphor. What if I define freedom as my ability to willingly contribute to the harmonious performance of the orchestra, and that performance is more important to me than my single part. Am I wrong to think about freedom that way or just different. I still want the freedom to choose my conductor but the performance is parmount.

Also to say the constituion absolutely guarantees hateful and dangerous speech is absolutely wrong. Try yelling fire in crowded theatre when there isn't one and someone is killed in the pursuing stampede. You will be prosecuted for that persons death.

If you want Freedom,
You must allow others their Freedom.

As for allowing the "ugly" side of Freedom,

Alma teaches Amulek an eternal truth regarding Free Agency,
While watching innocent women and children being cast into the fire -
and having the power of God to Stop it -
Alma teaches that the wicked must be allowed to do their wickedness.

Christ could have come down off the cross, and called down down legions -- but he taught us the same thing about Free Agency.

Even the wicked must be allowed Free Agency - otherwise, Good or Bad - we are falling into Satan's Plan of no agency at all -- even when our intents are righteous.

It is sad that we teach our children a false philosophy of life and thus ill prepare them to face the rigors of life in the real world.

Human beings are not “good”. They have built in primal desires to live easy and long, some are even willing to die for their cause.

Americans are no different from the other humans in this world.

The reason Americans may be regarded as “good” is not that they are good as individuals, but that they are good because as a group they decided to be good. It is the Constitution and it’s enforcement that makes us be good.

Our rights, freedoms and tendency to be good to others is mainly the result of our government. Individually we would be more like savage animals. As much as we might hate and despise government forcing us to be good, we know the alternative would be much worse.

"Therefore, it can be difficult for some people to understand why the U.S. government allowed such a vile and hateful video to be produced."

The mere fact that you are calling the video vile and hateful indicates that you're influenced by terrorism. The aim of terrorism is to stifle speech, make people cower and align themselves with a certain teaching... or else. And that teaching is called Islam as we have seen by the news reports.

I watched the video trailer and it didn't seem to be that evil. In fact, it seemed to replicate exactly what is going on in the Islamic religion.

Oh, and the government 'allowed' the video for two reasons (1) the government didn't know it was being produced and shown, and (2) we have a thing called freedom of speech guaranteed by our Constitution's First Amendment.

@Ultra Bob

"It is the Constitution and its enforcement that makes us be good..."

Again, it's ironic how people are so uneducated when it comes to the Constitution! The Constitution is not laws for the people, its laws for our government! It's about what our government can and cannot do. Even the Bill of Rights was originally for the government. Take the 1st Amendment for example, since freedom of speech is currently a hot topic. Originally, it didn't mean people could say whatever they wanted. In England, when people said anything bad about the Crown, the consequences were severe, so the first amendment was added so when people said something about the government, the government couldn't do anything about it.

Read the words of our Founding Fathers, for they talk in great depth in personal writings why they wrote the Constitution the way they did, so the government would be kept in line, limiting their power while the people had the freedom to govern themselves and it is this reason the Constitution is so important, it gives us freedom from our government.

@Ultra Bob

boxerdog915 is correct. Our Constitution is revolutionary (although it followed the Magna Charta in this regard) in that it regulates the GOVERNMENT, it does not regulate the people. Under it, it allows Congress and the States (through the representatives WE choose) to regulate us--but only in certain ways, within strict limits, that have admittedly become much softer over the years . . . thank you, Commerce Clause.

We the people are and always have been regulated by our chosen representatives, not by the Constitution. And at any time, by simple majority vote (Supreme Court willing) we could roll back any or all those regulations.