My fourth grade teacher, Edna Smith (yes, that was her real name) introduced me to the Constitution of the United States and the guarantee of liberty in its Bill of Rights. She had taught in the elementary school where I attended for something like forty years by the time I got to her fourth grade class. She was unmarried, in her sixties and of the generation that had experienced both the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Miss Smith was big on the practice of values. Constitution was a year-long subject which she not only made the most interesting class we had, but the most productive in terms of what we learned. And the lessons were practical, in that she illustrated the principles and practice of the rights with the way she operated her classroom. With each right we had in the room as a student came a level of responsibility as well, whether it was a grade we earned or a privilege we got to exercise. That's how I learned that personal freedom has a cost associated with it that doesn't always come out of my pocket, and that it is inseparable from responsibility.
It seems that our former President didn't get the connection from his Constitution teacher. Nor did very many of the people who voted for him and continue to support him.
Long before he ran for President of the United States, Trump was an agenda-driven demagogue. He's left a very clear record in words and deeds that make it very clear his only interest in this country is the benefit that it can provide for him. Patriots obey the laws regulating and governing activities involving business and foreign interests. They don't dodge their responsibilities as citizens, including trying to cheat on or avoid paying taxes, or use a phony excuse for avoiding military service. They don't knowingly lie in order to undermine a free and fair election. They don't gather groups of subversive, conspiracy theorists and Constitution-haters to rallies to attack Congress while it is performing one of its constitutional duties. They are not pathological liars, making up their own set of facts and reality while speaking to the American people from its highest office.
Trump is no patriot.
So the owners of the social media outlets who will no longer allow his hateful lies and treasonous incitements to be publicized over their airwaves are not only completely within their rights, but they are exercising a level of responsibility that is consistent with what the founders envisioned when they wrote the Constitution and defined the principles of individual liberty. They have correctly discerned Trump's complete lack of responsibility and integrity and by separating those values from his words, he deserves no outlet to spread his poison. He has not earned the right to have a public platform.
American Students Need More Teachers like Miss Smith
The curriculum in schools needs to beef up the social studies objectives, especially when it comes to Constitutional history. It needs to be paired with the values that are necessary to make individual freedom work for everyone and that means that responsibility must be taught, illustrated and modeled by those who teach it, and by politicians who want to use its power.
The Constitution is a great document, but without the application of personal responsibility, integrity, the recognition and respect for the equality of our fellow human beings and American citizens given at a cost of personal sacrifice, it is just another collection of words expressing meaningless ideals. Miss Smith understood those principles, believed in them and lived them. There are other teachers whose passion for life and liberty have led them down the same path. We need more of them.
We also need more leaders who will stand up to bullies like Trump, who endanger our freedom and undermine our trust. Taking away his tweeting ability is as patriotic an act as volunteering for military service.
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