To the Editor
Freedom of Speech and Expression under the U.S. Constitution.
I note from Face Book that a number of current and/or former residents of Cottonwood have signaled their support for denying others their Constitutional rights by supporting President Trump and his lap dog Mike Pence who are trying to make a mockery of the freedoms granted to all of us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In particular, see (a) Trump’s tweeting that as concerns the likes of Colin Kaepernick, NFL owners “should firethe sons of bitches”, and (b) V.P. Pence’s grandstanding by “walking out of” an NFL football game on Sunday after wasting tax payer money flying back and forth across the U. S. with his contingent of body guards and assistants, walking into the stands, and then walking out to hold a press conference, and then flying the entire contingent back across the country at taxpayer expense. Both Trump and Pence need to recognize the rights of citizens under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and start acting accordingly, and quit wasting taxpayer money deliberately ginning up hatred for black football players.
The law: In 1942 the West Virginia Legislature passed a law providing that all teachers and pupils "shall be required to participate in the salute honoring the Nation represented by the Flag, and providing further that refusal to salute the Flag shall be regarded as an Act of insubordination, and shall be dealt with accordingly." The school board enacted a rule requiring students to salute the flag in proper form while standing at attention and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Marie and Gathie Barnett were Jehovah's Witnesses attending Slip Hill Grade School near Charleston, West Virginia, who were instructed by their father not to salute the flag or recite the pledge, and were expelled for their refusal. This expulsion, in turn, automatically exposed the children and their parents to criminal prosecution; the expelled child was considered "unlawfully absent" and could be proceeded against as a delinquent, and their parents or guardians could be fined as much as $50 and jailed up to thirty days.
Suit was filed in the Federal Court with the Barnetts challenging the West Virginia Law as being in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The district court ruled that the statute violated the constitution. The state appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and lost when the Court established the rule that still applies today, which ruling torpedoes the thinly disguised attack by Trump and Pence on the Constitutional rights of citizens.
West Virginia State Board of Education, et al. v. Walter Barnette, et al. 319 U.S. 624;63 S. Ct. 1178; 87 L. Ed. 1628;
Analysis of the case follows:
Point #1. Justice Jackson, writing for the majority of the court, analyzed the case as one of freedom of speech and expression. He did not question Frankfurter's designation of the flag as a national symbol; instead, he criticized the pedestal on which Frankfurter put such national symbols. Jackson called symbols a "primitive but effective way of communicating ideas," and explained that "a person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man's comfort and inspiration is another's jest and scorn."
He continued stating: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein”.
Point #2. Justice Jackson dealt with Frankfurter's assertion that forcing students to salute the flag, and threatening them with expulsion if they chose not to, was a permissible way to foster national unity.
Jackson rejected Frankfurter's argument, citing the Roman effort to drive out Christianity, the Spanish Inquisition of the Jews and the Siberian exile of Soviet dissidents as evidence of the "ultimate futility" of efforts to coerce unanimous sentiment out of a populace. Jackson warned that "[t]hose who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. (Emphasis mine). [Works fine in North Korea, but is verboten in the U.S.]
Point #3. Next Jackson denied Frankfurter's argument that flag saluting ceremonies were an appropriate way to build the "cohesive sentiment" that Frankfurter believed national unity depended on. He wrote as follows: 
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections”.
Point #4. Marshall continued:
“The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great.
But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom.
The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
Seems to me that most Prairie folks, current and former, want it both ways as concerns the Constitutional
Amendments, i.e., the right to bear arms (even if that means machine gun clones) is inviolate, but the right to freedom of expression outside of the local community is anathema.
Wayne J. Wimer, Attorney at Law (Retired).

Redneck Review!
No. 129 10/9/17
Hey!  Would you believe that Friday coming up falls on October 13? Traditionally, for old guys like myself, there is supposed to be some dire happenings on a "Friday the 13th!"
Wikipedia says "Friday the13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition."
That may well be, but as I search back through the past seven plus decades of my life,I have to admit that no outstanding disaster comes to mind associated with that day!
That might be since Friday the 13th normally occurs only twice a year most years, as it does this year, and will only happen once in 2021 and 2022.  Research tells us that day actually occurred three times in 2012 and 2015, and will again three times in 2026.
But students of history know there is another important bit of history, unknown to most of our population today!  That is the documented accounts of apparitions by Mary, mother God, to three little children in Fatima, from May to October in 1917, a period of six months, all on the 13th each month. For the open minded individual, the recorded events on those days can be easily researched!  Each month from May to October, the number of people who came to the site started small, but reached around 70,000 in October.  Newspapers as far away as 50 miles, and the testimony of hundreds of people confirmed a "Miracle of the Sun," which began "spinning and falling from the sky" during a drenching rain that had soaked all in attendance. Amazingly, as the sun returned to its accustomed spot, suddenly the rain stopped and the ground and all who had been soaked instantly became dry!
Detailed information about these apparitions and the final "Miracle of the Sun" appeared in reviews 33 and 34 back in 2015, and can easily be verified by a Google or other computer search into the events, using search words Fatima, or Marian apparitions.
The three children involved, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, are said to have seen a vision of hell so graphic, that from that time on their lives were changed so significantly, that even a threat to burn them one at a time in oil failed to force them to change their accounts of their visions. They were told that only prayer, specifically the rosary, and sacrifice by the people,
coupled with attendance at "Mass on Five first Saturdays" and the consecration of Russia to the Blessed Virgin would stave off a series of disasters which would result in a second WW II, the total destruction of several countries, the rapid spread of atheism with the rise of the Soviet Union, and other wars and natural disasters which would plague the world in unrelenting ways.
So could this October the 13th hold any special significance for us?  Who knows, and I for one am not prepared to make any predictions, one way or the other!  But there are  facts from the past that might get a person's attention! For one, history tells us that Portugal was controlled with an iron hand by communism during the time of the apparitions, but that came to an end a few years later rather mysteriously after the country was consecrated to Mary, and also amazingly, was saved from involvement in WW II which included all of Europe!
And interesting it is that a heaven sent request  that France and its king be consecrated as directed was not heeded. But Louis XVI decided it should be done 100 years later almost to the day, as he was headed for the guillotine from prison in the Bastille! Interesting!
Hey! For those who are interested and believe in the power of prayer, a prayer and rosary rally is scheduled for noon, Oct 14, at St. Mary's Church in Cottonwood!
Jake Wren

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