Temp hold 2nd Rev Ch 1 Dec 16 2017

@Yes, we as citizens are entitled to vote, serve on federal juries, join the US military, and send our loved ones off to foreign wars to fight and die. Yes, we can donate our time and money to political campaigns and attend Town Hall meetings held by our elected representatives.

Our constitutional right of free association allows us to join Toastmasters, Daughter of the American Revolution, or a private gun club. We can express our civic-mindedness by tutoring kids in an after-school program, teaching ES or volunteering at a local hospital.  We can join citizen groups trying to influence public opinion on social justice or political hot-button issues such as immigration, climate change, gay marriage, women’s reproductive rights, gun safety, voter suppression, etc.

Our constitutional right of free speech authorizes us to call our elected officials and send them letters and email. Our right of free means we can visit them in person and if that doesn’t achieve our stated goals, we can lay down on their office floor and refusing to leave; we can even get arrested as a constitutional act of civil disobedience to demonstrate how incredibly important the issue is to us.

Our constitutional right of assembly means we can join a political demonstration on the sidewalk outside their offices. We can carry placards and bullhorns or get a couple dozens of like-minded individuals (or even a couple thousand) to march on city streets to express our mounting and urgent dissatisfaction with “politics as usual”. We can even organize a massive event like the WWI veterans’ famous “Hooverville” encampment in 1928, the millions of Americans that demonstrated against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, the  “Occupy Wallstreet” tent city in New York that began on September 17th, 2011, or the Women’s March down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC January 21, 2017. &&&&