Guess who said the following.

“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed – and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment – the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution – not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and sentimental, not to simply ‘give the public what it wants’ – but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger public opinion.

“This means coverage and analysis of international news – for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security …

“And so it is to the printing press – to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news – that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.” –

Give up? It was JFK at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1961, explaining the precise role of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution – the role the Founding Fathers had in mind when they added it to the Bill of Rights, and here’s exactly how they spelled it out: “Amendment I: Congress shall make no laws 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.”

But in America today, we don’t have a free press. Six companies own and control 80% of the mass media in order to condition the public to accept specific agendas, and even Will Rogers would poke fun at this acceptance by saying to his audience, “I only know what I read in the newspapers.”

A case in point is the spin put on the words,”Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” How anyone could interpret that to mean “separation of church and state” is a question that defies all logic. But the gullible public continues to buy the hoax.

A hoax? Yes. Guess who said, “Using the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ is actually a mischievous diversion from the actual intention of the Founding Fathers, and use of that term should be explicitly abandoned.”

Give up? It was William Renquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.