Class discussion Feb. 12

Today in class, Professor Smith talked about the separation of church and state as well as freedom of speech and the first amendment in general. He talked about Locke, who in the year 1689 wrote about the Letter of Toleration and had also mentioned Milton who in the year 1644 wrote Areopagitica. In his work, Milton was against a law called The Licensing Order of 1643, in which the British government forced authors to have a government license before their work could be published. Spinoza in 1670 criticized all organized religion in general. This is a topic that has been written about for hundreds of years. We still have issues. Recent comments by a new congresswoman that have been condemned as anti-semitic seem to violate the separation. Why would a government leader make such comments? Although freedom of speech could be argued it seems government leaders should be held to a higher standard. I guess Rep. Omar agreed she was wrong and apologized. Professor Smith drew out a triangle, at the top was the speech/press as "thinking" category, the bottom left shows being free and establishment as "being" category and the bottom right side as the assembly and the petition as the "acting" category. Only time will tell if Omar really meant her apology.