The fundamental controversy in a democracy is what happens when a small group of people decides they want to force everyone else to think and say certain things or to accept and endorse uses of power they would naturally reject.

The Bill of Rights clearly lays out the standard:

• All people enjoy human rights, and government is absolutely bound to honor those rights.
• The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruelty by government.
• The Ninth Amendment protects even rights not written into law.
• The Tenth Amendment concludes the Bill of Rights with the recognition that power resides with the people. Not one person. Not power-holders. Everyone.
• The Fifth and Sixth Amendments make clear: fundamental rights belong to every human being, not only to citizens.

The First Amendment sets up an important implicit structure for the enduring defense of freedom: Freedom of religion means that your own religious faith and practice is protected by people whose faith and practice are very different from yours. The rights of Muslims protect the rights of people of Christian faith. The rights of Christians protect the rights of people of Jewish faith. Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and even atheists, are all part of a cooperative fabric of liberated human spirituality. This shared freedom means no one can stamp out someone else’s meaningful inner life.

This does three things right at the beginning of the Bill of Rights:

1. Thought control is denied to all agents of government.
2. Your basic freedoms are protected by the rights and freedoms of people you might see as “other” and with whom you disagree on many issues.
3. No one in government can ever claim to be enacting God’s will, while aggressing or degrading anyone.

This absolute denial of raw power to those who hold office is essential. The United States came together in 1776 to establish the first nation founded on the principle that human rights are universal. Power that rejects this idea is absolutely illegitimate, under the U.S. Constitution. The three main sections of the Declaration of Independence, above the signatures, effectively say the republic is founded on three things: universal human rights, rejection of tyrannical abuses, and a shared bond of sacred honor.

The First Amendment is not just a list of personal liberties. It is a foundational, legally binding declaration that each of our rights are connected to the date and freedom of others. So, freedom of faith comes first. The freedom to think and speak as you wish, to express your feelings, ideals, and frustrations, freely, to share information, demand better from government, is necessary to make all other freedoms safe. When you see someone’s freedom of speech infringed, you are seeing your own freedom denied and eroded.

People not like you are your allies, whose natural and irreducible human rights are also yours. When those who hold power seek to degrade those not like you, they degrade you too and put your own freedom at risk.

It is not easy to treat those whose ideas we reject as allies, especially when they insist we are not allies, but the First Amendment demands it. We are allies in the collective practice of living and defending human rights and liberty.

The free press is also our ally, whether we like what they are printing or not. We are most aided by the press when they publish facts and evidence, or when they broadcast analysis that is informed, insight-building, and not intended to aid partisan or factional political ambition. Each of us needs for those around us to have access to facts, evidence, and insights, so we can have meaningful, values-based conversations about the best way to move forward together while remaining free.

Those who fall into the trap of demanding that media outlets only communicate messages aligned with their religious beliefs or partisan leanings have begun to surrender their freedom. It is not those they disagree with that threaten their religious, moral, and political sovereignty; it is their own withdrawal from the popular alliance of free people and universal rights.

Without real freedom for journalists to challenge power, question the official story, document and denounce abuses, and support those abused by power-holders, democracy cannot function, and freedom begins to die. Hardline religious conservatives are not liberated or well-served by press that enforce hardline political regimes; they first become pawns and quickly are forced to abandon their morality altogether, in service of the tyrants they incite to run wild in violation of universal rights.

Peaceable assembly, and therefore nonviolent protest, even when disruptive, is a necessary element in this foundational mix of universal rights. Without it being absolutely protected—which the First Amendment says it is—religious freedom is an impossibility, as are freedom of speech, the press, and all of the other human rights and freedoms they sustain.

Imagine a world where the government could dictate which people you can gather with, at what time and for how long, what you are allowed to discuss and what information your brain is allowed to take in. Such nightmare worlds are common in science fiction warnings about runaway authoritarianism. There is no way to uphold the First Amendment or any other part of the Bill of Rights if Americans are not free to protest and dissent, to form associations that carry out charitable or educational missions, to incorporate towns and churches.

Civil society is all of us—the people, including both citizens and everyone else who lives in our communities. A free society recognizes the role of civil society in the overall, multilayer process of self-government.

The minister in the pulpit, the nun who nurses the sick and abandoned, the lawyer who defends civil liberties, all benefit in their purpose and are freer to do good work, because people who see the government’s actions as intolerable are free to gather, protest, and demand better. That people you don’t listen to, or with whom you tend to disagree, are alarmed by threats to universal rights, should alert you to the degradations you would not otherwise see.

We should not ignore each other’s witness, each other’s values and concerns. When we do, we begin to allow our freedom to be degraded. Look to those allies that seem unlike your friend group; listen to the witness they bring to the long complicated life of our republic. Whether we can keep the republic depends on each of us recognizing that we are all human, with rights and values that deserve unwavering protection.