Why the First Amendment Came First
Week 2, Part 1 – What It Is: Five Freedoms, One Promise
By Dr. Chris Jones
“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.”
One sentence.
Five freedoms.
Limitless possibilities.
Endless consequences.
Welcome back to The Social Contract.
This week, we dig into the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the one that lays the foundation for every other right we claim to have. The one that doesn’t just grant freedom — it protects democracy itself.
Before the right to bear arms…
Before due process or voting rights…
The First Amendment came first.
This is why I’m a STRONG supporter of the First Amendment!
🔎 Why first? Because without it, nothing else can stand.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government. It’s easy to rattle those off like a civics class checklist. But each of these is more than a legal clause — it’s a tool that people use every day to challenge injustice, tell the truth, and push for change.
🗣 Freedom of Speech: So you can speak truth to power without fear.
📰 Freedom of the Press: So journalists can investigate and inform, even when it’s inconvenient for the powerful.
✝️ Freedom of Religion: So faith is not weaponized — and belief is never coerced.
🪧 Freedom of Assembly: So people can gather to resist, to grieve, to demand better.
📝 Freedom to Petition: So there’s a clear path to say “this isn’t working” — and request a fix.
These freedoms are the social contract. When they are honored, society thrives. When they are threatened, democracy begins to decay.
🏛 What the Founders Got Right — and What They Didn’t
The Constitution had glaring failures. It excluded entire populations — Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, women — from its protection. But the inclusion of these five freedoms was one place the Founders understood something essential:
If people can't speak up, organize, believe freely, report the truth, or petition their government, then every other right becomes defenseless.
That’s why the First Amendment comes first.
Not by accident. But by design.
It makes sense when you think about it. The place they were fleeing systematically suppressed their voice. The founders knew, first hand, the dangers of unchecked power with no mechanism of accountability and no means of course correction.
Without these five freedoms, concentrated and absolute rule by one individual becomes the norm. This is why it’s so often that these freedoms are the first thing attacked by authoritarian movements.
📸 What It Looks Like in Real Life
You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to see the First Amendment in action. You just need to look around.
A student with a protest sign.
A preacher delivering a sermon on justice.
A parent voicing concerns at a school board meeting.
A journalist breaking a corruption story.
A librarian resisting a book ban.
These acts are democracy. When people are punished for them, the foundation cracks.
🛡️ Why This Matters Right Now
The collapse of democracy doesn’t always start with soldiers in the streets. It often starts with silence. With fear. With people deciding that speaking out just isn’t worth the risk.
The First Amendment can’t defend itself. It needs us.
This week, we’ll explore both the damage that’s been done — and how we can rebuild what’s being lost.
But today, I invite you to sit with two questions:
When was the last time you exercised your First Amendment rights?
What would your life — your community — lose if your First Amendment rights disappeared?
I’ll be back Wednesday with Part 2: When Freedom Gets Filtered — a closer look at how these freedoms are being eroded in real time.
✊🏽 Until then, keep speaking, keep questioning, and keep showing up.
— Dr. Chris Jones
📚 Missed last week’s posts? Catch up here:
🎧 Listen to the full Week 1 podcast episode
➡️In Good Faith with Dr. Chris Jones: Episode 1. The Social Contract (Spotify)
Well done! And let's remember, eons upon eons, the attempts to silence oppositional messages and how the sign of the fish was placed on walls back in the day (secret announcements, secret meeting places). Early "trouble makers", women and men, heard the message, "the word on the streets", i.e. that stuff don't have to stay the same... "a kingdom was a coming" and Lordy did it set their souls on fire! Free speech matters! In the beginning was the WORD, keep teaching Dr. Jones.
I no longer live in Arkansas but thank you for everything you’re doing!