"You have the right to freeze peach!" And I will defend that right 'til your last dying breath.

Wait. That doesn't sound right. Hang on -- I need to check something. Okay, it looks like I misunderstood one of our rights. Which brings me to my mini rant about a major issue:

This is the opening of a letter to the editor that was published in my local paper: "No matter how loathsome or despicable one may find Donald Sterling's rants, under the First Amendment he is entitled to make them." The writer goes on to suggest that Sterling should sue the NBA for violating his rights.

One of the reason we have so many economic and social problems in this country is that so many people have no idea what they are talking about. Anyone who has actually read and understood the First Amendment would know that speech is protected from government intervention, not from corporate reactions.

Some people seem incapable of reading and understanding a simple sentence such as this: "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." Or they are too sure of their knowledge to bother looking up the amendment before citing it. This attitude gets us into even more trouble when people try to use half-remembered or mis-remembered Bible passages as a basis for laws.