The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.
William O. DouglasRead
This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the fundamental importance of the right to travel in maintaining a free society and safeguarding other rights.
William O. Douglas highlights that the freedom of movement is central to a truly free society. He argues that this right is foundational, as it enables individuals to engage in various essential activities such as learning, debating, and thinking. When this freedom is restricted, it jeopardizes the meaningfulness of all other rights, similar to the restrictions imposed by curfews or home confinement.
In practice
This quote can be used during a lecture on civil rights to illustrate the interconnectedness of freedoms.
The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.
One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.
The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.
I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out the true from the false in theology, economics, or any other field.
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
The truth is that a vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person. Without that restructuring the good will that holds society together will be slowly dissipated... It is that sense of futility which permeates the present series of protests and dissents. Where there is a persistent sense of futility, there is violence; and that is where we are today.
But it has often happened that I have found the most seductive depictions of sin in the pages of those very men of incorruptible virtue who condemned their spell and their effects.
You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone.
The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery. Neither knowledge nor hope for the future can be the pivot of our life or determine its direction. It is intended to be solely determined by our allowing ourselves to be gripped by the ethical God, who reveals Himself in us, and by our yielding our will to His.
I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.
A good End cannot sanctify evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.
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