God on Our Side

     Miss Armstrong was my English teacher in seventh grade. This is the class I remember the most after all these years, but I can't say I particularly liked it at the time – it was not my favorite; I do not know which seventh grade class was my favorite – I was a teenager, everything was a drag.

     In English class, our desks were usually in a circle or horseshoe – so we could see each other during discussions. There were kids who talked animatedly when participating,I can still see them, and there were those kids who did not talk at all - like me.

     Outside, in the real world those days, there were the Viet Nam War protesters, the Civil Rights marchers, and Equal Rights demonstrations. Sometimes the crowds would not disperse. Sometimes they got rowdy to the point of violence or riots. They were also embarrassing to the leaders in Washington. Arrests were often made. Good behavior or bad – the groups were in the newspaper headlines and on the television news daily.

     Miss Armstrong decided to bring current events into the classroom. The First Amendment says Americans have the right to peaceful assembly. The demonstrations in our cities were legal, but could the anger and the protests possibly be construed as treason? Could their size, their potential for violence, or outright protests be a violation of the rights of others who would rather the protesters just go home and stop complaining?            The teacher proposed a debate – one side, comprised of four students in the class, would be in favor of the right to demonstrate, and the other side, also comprised of four students, would propose that the right to demonstrate should be done away with.

     Well, I signed up for the pro side. We had already won, I figured, because we had right on our side. The civil right to gather was already well-established in the amendments to our Constitution! There was no need to prepare an argument or examples to illustrate our point. All we needed to say was – it is a law, so we are right! I guess this goes back to what I perceived home to be like – no discussion, just one parent or the other declaring what is right, and that was all there was to it.

      Of course, the other side, the four students arguing that demonstrations should not be legal, presented their case with facts, case histories, eloquence, and by comparison to our side, with persuasion. All our side said was, “it's a law, so it's right”. Miss Armstrong seemed a bit surprised – she tactfully explained to us that one should always be prepared to defend one's point of view with something more than a fist coming down on the table. And then she said the other side had won the debate!

      Right did not win.

      How unusual is that?

131 20150511 God on Our Side