I wasn't even paying attention to the TV this morning when I heard someone passionately disagreeing with a recent Supreme Court decision striking down the death penalty for child rapists. In pretty much the same breath, the same guy described himself as pro life.

Nope, I'm not defending child rapists. Or the death penalty. Or life, for that matter, but this is the kind of duplicity that makes my ears perk up.

I know the argument for being both "pro life" and "pro death penalty." Hell, I even know the jokes. But listening to this guy (who is a governor and not, say, a quack) parse out these issues and how they relate to McCain and Obama made me wonder if we're getting any change at all for our oil bucks. It was classic doublespeak, and made me wander my apartment for a bit before I realized I hadn't poured any coffee yet. And maybe the caffeine would help make sense of it all.

We've got a thing in this country called the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to the Constitution. Right after the Constitution was written, we added the first ten. So nothing's perfect, I guess. Here's what the first five cover:

The first one is actually five. You can practice whatever religion you want (and provides for a separation of church and government). You can say whatever you want. You can sue and protect yourself from suit. You can assemble peacefully. But you can't advocate the overthrow of the government by war. You have to vote the bastards in and out if you want to change government (this is why voting is free speech, by the way).

The second one is about having guns.

The third one is about not having to house military personnel in your house without permission. And is probably one of the least cited "rights" ever, even though it was very important to the people who wrote the constitution. The British were famous for taking over homesteads for places to house their red coats. We don't have the same problems today--although tax payers do provide for the military (but not in a you can stay at my place kind of way).

The fourth one is about unreasonable searches and seizures, and the fifth one is the right to not say anything incriminating about yourself.

This week the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms by striking down a citywide ban on guns in Washington, D.C. Which is nice, I guess. I always figured if the Court protected one right, then they'd probably protect the other ones, too.

But they don't.

Freedom of speech is a funny thing. Actual free speech can be hard to spot. Anything broadcast over the TV is not, technically, free. A company owns what is broadcast, and so they are responsible for the words coming out of people's mouths on those channels. If you want some vulgarity with your TV, you have to pay for it (i.e. HBO, Showtime, etc.). If someone says something vulgar on a free channel, the channel (and parent company) could be fined by the FCC. Which is the government. And fines aren't free.

The late, great George Carlin joked about the seven words you can't say on TV. And this couldn't be broadcast over free TV. But he could say them if you paid to hear them. You still can't say these seven words on TV (or in a newspaper). They are not free.

But you can write whatever you want on your blog or Myspace page or wherever else on the Internet. And even though you might have to pay service fees, it's pretty much free. As free as anything can be these days. And there's no editor or governing body getting mad about what you say--probably because there are so many blogs in the world, not many people read your version of reality. I guess the free-est speech is protesting. I saw a guy with a "Honk to impeach Bush and Cheney" sign last night. Of course, honking infringes my right to not have to hear annoying blasts of noise while driving home from dinner.

And don't get me started on the fourth amendment, which has pretty much been decimated in the last decade. The government can listen to your phone calls without a warrant. They can search your bags, your car and your person with little or no reason. They can take a picture of your car and give you a fine. And they can treat you like a criminal even if you're not doing anything wrong. Because cops are free to believe everyone is a criminal--it doesn't pay to believe everyone is good.

So just remember as we say Happy Birthday, USA, later in the week that some rights are more right than others. Hope you're on the right side.

Matt Worley doesn't think more laws make you safer, they just make more criminals.