HardSchell Report

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the primary amendment addressing freedom, guaranteeing freedoms of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition. It prohibits Congress from establishing a religion or hindering its free exercise, and it also protects the right to express oneself, including through the press, and to assemble peacefully. Additionally, the First Amendment ensures the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. 

But: we need some order

The concept of ordered liberty describes a balance between individual freedom and social order, recognizing that both are important and necessary for a healthy and just society. John Stuart Mill asks in On Liberty, “What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over him/her self? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?” Good questions, John!

“Ordered liberty” requires a balance between positive liberty and negative liberty. Negative liberty is the absence of external constraints on the individual, while positive liberty is the ability to act on one’s desires and goals. Ordered liberty requires a balance within the constraints of a well-ordered society. Individual actions can not harm others.

Ordered Liberty has been discussed by many political philosophers, including Friedrich Hayek, who emphasized the importance of negative liberty in his work “The Constitution of Liberty, and Isaiah Berlin, who distinguished between positive and negative liberty in his essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” delivered at Oxford in 1958.

At last count, many Executive Orders from the Trump Regime in 2025 seem to ignore the guaranteed freedoms mentioned in the 1st amendment :

	Reductions of Negative Liberty
Law Firms	In February and March the Trump regime issued a bunch of Executive Orders targeting law firms based on their representation of clients and advocacy for causes the President disfavors and threatening to terminate federal government contracts with them, banning them from entering federal buildings and in some cases barring interaction with federal employees.
Universities	In April 2025, Trump signed several executive orders that target universities, focusing on accreditation reform, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and foreign influence on college campuses. These orders aim to shift the focus towards meritocracy, reduce perceived “wokeness,” and ensure colleges adhere to federal civil rights laws.
Public Education	One Executive Order requires that K-12 schools adopt “patriotic” curricula and further vows to withhold funding from any schools that teach that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.” “… parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.”
Immigrants	One Order provides that resident aliens who express “hatred for America” or “bear hostile attitudes toward [American] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” are subject to deportation. Another frets about immigrants signing up for public benefits: “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization Of Open Borders”
Transgender Rights	Two of Trump’s Executive Orders single out transgender individuals, banning them from military service and imposing restrictions on the genders they can use on U.S. passports. These Orders raise important equal protection concerns, but also bar individuals from communicating about their own gender identity.
Information	The Administration’s cost-cutting and desire to control the flow of information have deeply affected the availability and distribution of information in the United States. Trump has ordered the disbanding of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, important outlets for furthering American interests abroad. Trump’s spending cuts have also decimated libraries, which are critical distributors of information. Trump recently issued an Executive Order that purports to remove “anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian Museum.
Deportations	The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to CECOT prison in San Salvador, under a controversial deal with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. This action was highly questionable because it relies on a wartime law (the Alien Enemies Act) to expedite deportations of alleged gang members, even after a federal judge had blocked the administration from invoking it.

Trump has assembled an obsequious (showing excessive willingness to serve or obey, often in a fawning or servile manner) bunch of “patriots” that give him unlimited negative liberty to follow his creepy inclinations.

If this group ignores the courts,
we have only one legal recourse.