&uot;Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.&uot; The First Amendment has been used – or abused – by two very different groups of people in the past couple of weeks.

An archconservative pundit by the name of David Horowitz tried to buy full-page ads in college newspapers across the country. The subject of his ad is &uot;Ten Reasons Slavery Reparations Are a Bad Idea for Blacks.&uot;

Many newspapers refused to print the ad, as is their right.

But Brown University chose to print the ad, as is its right. So a group of people, being the mature college students that they are, rounded up all of the newspapers because they did not agree with Mr. Horowitz’s opinion.

I have a good feeling I would disagree with most of what Mr. Horowitz has to say on most subjects.

But if he pays for an ad in a newspaper – a college newspaper that is likely free, as mine was, to students and professors – people have a right to read it.

The arguments for slavery reparations, obviously, boil down to this: Descendants of slaves deserve monetary reparations because their ancestors were kidnapped and forced into servitude.

How can people who want to pay slaves’ descendants for their ancestors’ loss of freedom choose to subvert one of the freedoms so hallowed in this country that it is guaranteed in the First Amendment?

I guess, for some people, the First Amendment only works when it works for them.

And as I write this, our senators in Washington continue to debate campaign finance reform.

One of the arguments against limiting campaign contributions is that those monetary donations should be protected as &uot;free&uot; speech – making that argument my new favorite oxymoron.

I wonder how many of the senators who want to fill their campaign coffers with such &uot;speech&uot; also want to squash the National Endowment for the Arts or enact a law to ban flag burning.

I’m not sure how campaign donations qualify as free speech, and I’m offended that senators who normally would try to trample upon the First Amendment are now trying to hide behind it.

That said, I know plenty of people who would disagree with me about how burning the flag qualifies as free speech.

I sometimes wonder whether the Founding Fathers knew what a can of worms they were opening when they guaranteed our freedoms in such subjective ways.

But they left it open so that we could keep deciding for ourselves, keep redefining the boundaries.

The problem is, we can’t pick and choose which parts of the First Amendment we like and don’t like, and the situations to which it should apply.

It’s a blanket that has to cover all of us, all the time.

Kerry Whipple is news editor of The Democrat. She can be reached at 445-3562 or be e-mail at kerry.whipple@ natchezdemocrat.com.