Senior Humanities: economics and government
First amendment video project
This is a First Amendment Video Project from the Animas High School senior class of 2015. This video shows the 5 types of unprotected speech through 5 Monty Python-style skits. This video was filmed, produced, and edited by Tony, Justin, Eric, and Will.
Find Tony's Digital portfolio HERE
Find Will's Digital portfolio HERE
Find Justin's Digital portfolio HERE
Go and and view other student projects HERE
Thank you for watching! Like and comment on the video to help us win the competition!
Find Tony's Digital portfolio HERE
Find Will's Digital portfolio HERE
Find Justin's Digital portfolio HERE
Go and and view other student projects HERE
Thank you for watching! Like and comment on the video to help us win the competition!
Free speech forum
America was founded as a place where people could be free to express their ideas and beliefs. In 1971 Ian Anderson and his band, Jethro Tull, released their hit album Aqualung. Anderson’s masterpiece of smooth melodies fused with rock and roll quickly made its way into the top 10 music charts. Rolling Stone described the theme of Aqualung as "the distinction between religion and God." Aqualung was a very controversial album between Christians and rock and roll society. Some outraged religions and their churches actually held organized album burnings to protest the album and it’s ideals. Even though the band Jethro Tull had the right to question organized religion, religious organizations also had the right to burn thousands of copies.
America is a democracy, and the most important component of a democracy is the right to free speech. Free speech is important, because without free speech, no radical views can be shared. When people voice their opinions, a variety of different views emerge, which can influence other people’s opinions, making their ideals more complex and more their own. Without free speech, it is much more complex for people to form new ideas, and have new opinions. Everybody would have to basically agree on everything. Which first would be very boring, and secondly the evolution of society would slow to a crawl. Free speech means free thinking, and free thinking means free ideas, and free ideas make progress.
The album Aqualung questioned ideas that many people by this time had accepted as truth, leading its listeners to question their beliefs, which either reinforced what they believed in, or changed what they believe. This album was released in 1971, when many people were more religious. Even in 1974, the rock band “KISS” formed, and religious individuals refused to listen to it, because they believed it to be the music of the devil. When Ian Anderson release Aqualung, many people thought him to be sacrilegious. You can see why people thought this from the following lyrics in the song Wind Up, “I asked this God a question and by way of firm reply, He said -- I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays. So to my old headmaster (and to anyone who cares): Before I'm through I'd like to say my prayers - I don't believe you: You had the whole damn thing all wrong --He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.” To many people this was heresy. To the artist, he just didn't want to go to church on Sunday. He basically said that he talked to god, he of course did not, but he used this as a literary device. Many people have questioned this before, but Ian Anderson put it into song. Many people listened to Aqualung, and it may have changed someone’s views on religion, making them a more intellectually diverse person.
Although many religious organizations did not appreciate the dissection and questioning of their deity, Aqualung is the sharing of one man’s religious ideals, and he should be able to share them. On the back cover of Aqualung, there is a rewritten version of Genesis 1:27-28. “And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good… And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind.“ In a way, this could be considered creating a new religion. So not only was Ian Anderson using his right to free speech, he was also utilizing his freedom of religion. In turn, the churches that held album burnings for Aqualung, had both the right to freedom of assembly, and to the freedom of religion.
Upholding freedom of speech means allowing people you disagree with to voice their opinions. In order for you to use your right to free speech, you must also defend the right for others to use free speech. You don’t know what you say may incite in people. In an interview with Ian Anderson, he said that he would have priests and ministers come up to him, to say that they love and get the ideas of the album. Even though these priests were part of an organization, they were free to think and speak for themselves, and have their own diverse views on the complexities of the world.
America is a democracy, and the most important component of a democracy is the right to free speech. Free speech is important, because without free speech, no radical views can be shared. When people voice their opinions, a variety of different views emerge, which can influence other people’s opinions, making their ideals more complex and more their own. Without free speech, it is much more complex for people to form new ideas, and have new opinions. Everybody would have to basically agree on everything. Which first would be very boring, and secondly the evolution of society would slow to a crawl. Free speech means free thinking, and free thinking means free ideas, and free ideas make progress.
The album Aqualung questioned ideas that many people by this time had accepted as truth, leading its listeners to question their beliefs, which either reinforced what they believed in, or changed what they believe. This album was released in 1971, when many people were more religious. Even in 1974, the rock band “KISS” formed, and religious individuals refused to listen to it, because they believed it to be the music of the devil. When Ian Anderson release Aqualung, many people thought him to be sacrilegious. You can see why people thought this from the following lyrics in the song Wind Up, “I asked this God a question and by way of firm reply, He said -- I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays. So to my old headmaster (and to anyone who cares): Before I'm through I'd like to say my prayers - I don't believe you: You had the whole damn thing all wrong --He's not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.” To many people this was heresy. To the artist, he just didn't want to go to church on Sunday. He basically said that he talked to god, he of course did not, but he used this as a literary device. Many people have questioned this before, but Ian Anderson put it into song. Many people listened to Aqualung, and it may have changed someone’s views on religion, making them a more intellectually diverse person.
Although many religious organizations did not appreciate the dissection and questioning of their deity, Aqualung is the sharing of one man’s religious ideals, and he should be able to share them. On the back cover of Aqualung, there is a rewritten version of Genesis 1:27-28. “And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good… And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind.“ In a way, this could be considered creating a new religion. So not only was Ian Anderson using his right to free speech, he was also utilizing his freedom of religion. In turn, the churches that held album burnings for Aqualung, had both the right to freedom of assembly, and to the freedom of religion.
Upholding freedom of speech means allowing people you disagree with to voice their opinions. In order for you to use your right to free speech, you must also defend the right for others to use free speech. You don’t know what you say may incite in people. In an interview with Ian Anderson, he said that he would have priests and ministers come up to him, to say that they love and get the ideas of the album. Even though these priests were part of an organization, they were free to think and speak for themselves, and have their own diverse views on the complexities of the world.
Mini-project: street law
Click here to see Brochure
Project Reflection
This mini project was about your rights in dealing with the police. In this project our essential question was, “How do we balance the need for personal privacy with the need to keep a safe, orderly, and just society?” Preparing for this project, we spent three days learning about reasonable expectation of privacy, reasonable suspicion, due process, probable cause, terry stops, case law, search and seizure, the school exception to probable cause, and Miranda rights. We watched some videos, and studied some cases to learn these concepts. Then we had to make a product to exhibit that shows truth, depth and beauty. This project could take any form. For me and my partner, Bella, this was a brochure.
This project is very relative to me as a young adult. Knowing your rights as an American can help me avoid getting into trouble later in life. I learned a lot in this project, and I wanted to share this new knowledge with the lower classmen, so Bella and I teamed up to make a brochure that summarizes most of the things we learned in class, in order to create a quick and effective way to spread the knowledge among the school. Hopefully us spreading around our brochures will help at least one person get out of a jam.
If I could explore one more part of this project further, I would look more into case law. We didn’t address it at all in our brochure, and it is a very interesting field to look into. How the Supreme Court rules on different cases with iffy aspects. The definitions of probable cause and reasonable suspicion are very iffy, and hard to rule on some times. Looking into more cases would be very interesting to me.
This project is very relative to me as a young adult. Knowing your rights as an American can help me avoid getting into trouble later in life. I learned a lot in this project, and I wanted to share this new knowledge with the lower classmen, so Bella and I teamed up to make a brochure that summarizes most of the things we learned in class, in order to create a quick and effective way to spread the knowledge among the school. Hopefully us spreading around our brochures will help at least one person get out of a jam.
If I could explore one more part of this project further, I would look more into case law. We didn’t address it at all in our brochure, and it is a very interesting field to look into. How the Supreme Court rules on different cases with iffy aspects. The definitions of probable cause and reasonable suspicion are very iffy, and hard to rule on some times. Looking into more cases would be very interesting to me.