Let's stand and fight for our rights

Altogether too often, American citizens 'surrender' their rights without a fight. It's time to stop that habit. Whether it's at school board meetings or elsewhere, our First Amendment rights are a fight worth having. Jazz Shaw's article highlights what happens when people stand up and intelligently fight the machine.

In Jazz's article, he notes that "Last October, 44-year-old Alabama gun shop owner Nathan Kirk went to the DMV to attend to one of the most typical, boring tasks that most Americans have to deal with on a regular basis. He was completing the registration of his Ford F-250 pickup truck. But he was taking care of that little detail just as the whole “Let’s Go Brandon” meme was blowing up online. He decided to have a bit of fun and coughed up the extra money for a vanity plate for the truck. The license plate number he requested was “LGBF JB.” The plate arrived near the end of January and he put it on the truck, then didn’t think much more about it."

Later in the article, he notes that "That changed when he received a letter in the mail a few weeks later from the Alabama Motor Vehicle Division. The letter informed him that his license plate was “an affront to the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama.” He was further informed that he had ten days to go to the DMV and surrender the license plate. Failing to do so could result in fines and marks against his driving record. Kirk declared that he wasn’t going to take the decision laying down took his case to the media and to conservative legislators in his state."

Hooray for Mr. Kirk. An unelected government bureaucrat doesn't have the authority to determine what's permitted by the First Amendment. Here's what happened after that:

As the story exploded online, Kirk said, thousands of social media commenters voiced support for him. More than 46,000 people either liked or loved a Facebook post about a Newsmax story in which Kirk said that if the state wanted his license plate, it would have to “come and take it.” David Clarke, the former Wisconsin sheriff turned conservative activist, wrote in a Facebook post that he supported Kirk and that it was time for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) to “step up” and do the same.

On Saturday, Kirk received a second letter from the state. This time, it was good news.

"The Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, has determined the above referenced license plate will not be recalled," officials wrote. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Jazz's commentary is right in saying "If Mr. Kirk hadn’t stood up for himself and taken his case to the public, the odds are that he would have been 'canceled' by someone at the Motor Vehicle Division and suffered what he described as an assault on his freedom of speech. But in reality, it doesn’t sound like the DMV ever had a very strong case to begin with and their attempt at denying him the vanity plate he requested (after already approving and issuing it) was mostly capricious in nature."

This interview happened before the Alabama DMV backed down:

The larger lesson from this is to challenge authority respectfully. We're citizens, not subjects. We aren't governed by autocrats but by fellow citizens.