Monday, Jan 12

What is freedom?

The Bill of Rights (the first 10 ammendments of the constitutaion guarantees Freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; and many rights in criminal case bright by the state. 

Southern Poverty Law Center defines freedom as freedom from hate, discrimination, and systemic injustice, ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all people.

The American Civil Liberties Union thinks of freedom as broadly the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, focusing heavily on First Amendment rights (speech, press, religion, assembly, petition) as essential for democracy, and extending to equality, privacy, and bodily autonomy (like reproductive rights) for all people.

The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) defines freedom primarily through the lens of religious liberty and constitutional rights, advocating for "God-given", inalienable rights like free speech and worship, often interpreted as freedom to express faith in public and freedom from government interference with religious practice, contrasting with broader secular views.

The Heritage Foundation defines freedom primarily as economic freedom: the fundamental right of individuals to control their own labor and property, enabling them to work, produce, consume, and invest without undue government coercion.

President Franklin Delano Rosevelt declared nearly 90 years ago that “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” Adding “Necessitous men are not free men,” intending this notion of “freedom from want” as a requirement for true freedom to serve as a justification for a new concept of “rights.”

Philosopher John Stuart Mill says "freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do, whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved."

For Martin Luther King Jr., freedom was not just the absence of oppression but a positive state of justice, equality, and opportunity for all, achieved through nonviolent resistance, demanding rights, and creating a "beloved community" where character, not color, determined worth, requiring continuous struggle for full realization.

AGENDA

• ​​​Daily Check in
• 8 minutes. What is YOUR definition of freedom? Imagine you were founding a company or organization to protect and defend people's freedoms and rights--what would you focus on?
• Look at Essay Rubric and Exemplar Essay.
  • ​Hooks
  • Arugments
  • Reasons
  • Conclusions
• Review your in-class draft on Google Classroom and start defining a structure and plan.