Things you have to believe in to be a Republican today:

[MikeTLive]

<I may have hijacked this thread into a constitution discussion>
Yes.
It is a very powerful statement.
In todays world of the photo-op and sound-byte,
any non-violent action that can strike such a resounding chord with so many people most surely deserves all the protections afforded to it by the constitution.

I would like to see historians, lawyers and linguists get together and take a closer look at the constitution.
they should then decipher and translate from the language of 1776 into the language of 2006.

by not doing this, every year we are allowing the meaning of the constitution to "change" as we ignore the natural evolution of language.

just as you cannot read olde-englifh or Shakespear word for word and have the same meaning, so it is with the legal documents that form the basis of our society.

we are a scared people who have been blissfully ignorant of the expense paid to validate our rights. Note that our rights were not "earned". They were codified and defined. Those rights are "self-evident".
However, ignorance is what is allowing us to "give them up".
frequently it is under the guise of being outdated, that we are in different times and dont need them anymore, that they are distasteful to some, that they make us feel un-safe.