IMAGINE A WORLD LIKE THIS

For one small sad moment, imagine a world like this.

A world of wombs without fetuses...hearts without loves...minds without thoughts...Springs without birds....Junes without marriages...Winters without Christmases...moons without lovers...pitchers without batters...organs without choirs...pianos without fingers...newspapers without readers...."The Wizard of Oz" without "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"...dreams without dreamers...oceans without beach parties...passions without purposes...prophets without followers...teachers without students...parents without pride...kites without kids....and constitutions without devotees.

A perfectly dreadful place. A world with all potential and no payoff!

One has to wonder sometime if this has not become the fate of our own hard-earned 1st Amendment. To have shed blood to achieve it, to have spilled ink to compose it, to have fought to preserve it, what are we left with...? Perhaps you hear and see what I do. Blind, blistering arguments in Congress, in sports bars, on commuter trains, on college campuses, in board rooms, in backrooms, in the Wrigley Field bleachers and on the worldwide web.

A cacophony of ranting voices exercising this sacred right like a fraternity gang chug-a-lugging vintage champagne. There's something almost sacrilegious here. Oh, we are assured that this is how democracy works; that such public-forum messiness can eventually translate into legislative majesty; that when Mr Smith goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart can eventually warm the cold heart of Claude Rains in the final reel.

I'm no longer sure.

And so it is that we live in a great irony. More freedom of speech being exercised by more citizens in more formats than ever before. From the office water-coolers to the family dinners, from our barbershops to our beauty salons, from our town halls to our street marches, and from talk radio to 24/7 cable. And yet, I feel the restless stirrings of our Founding Fathers in their graves who hear this babble of angry dis-informed voices, and whisper: "Don't you yet understand? Reason not rage is what we tried to enshrine in this amendment. If all you can bring to it is your rage, how will your reason ever prevail...?"