Rapid City Journal from Rapid City, South Dakota • 6

A6 I Sunday. July 3. 2011 LOCAL rapidcityjournal.com SUNDAY SPECIAL: THE 4 FREEDOMS FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION Blogs face challenges of anonymity, misuse By Lynn Taylor Rick Journal staff Once upon a time but not that long ago, actually a person with strong opinions could share them mainly with his family and friends. That is, unless he happened to own a printing press. Today, that same person can share those same opinions with thousands if not millions of people via the Internet.

It's an evolution of the way people exercise their First Amendment right to free speech, and it also opens up troubling new questions about personal responsibility. Cory Heidelberger believes the Internet would appeal to the country's Founding Fathers. "It was the first thing out of their mouths when they got the Bill of Rights going. They fought a war over it," Heidelberger said. In his blog Madville Times, Heidelberger discusses politics and life from his Madison home, leaning politically toward the left.

"The concept that a regular person could write about current affairs and get people to read it that's an interesting genre," he said. Rapid City blogger Bob Ellis writes about state and world politics, leaning toward the right. Ellis publishes the Dakota Voice blog, a conservative blog that started as a Christian Republican who served in the Legislature in 2009 and 2010. The bill would have allowed courts to identify anonymous bloggers in cases of libel. "I just couldn't understand why some accountability wasn't called for to protect innocent people," he said.

"It just doesn't seem right to me that people have no recourse." Hamiel's bill never became law, but he still believes the discussion isn't over. "The First Amendment does have exceptions. Even the First Amendment prohibits yelling 'fire' in the theater," and slandering a person, he said. "I thought it forwarded the discussion. I would expect a revisiting of that issue." Even with the challenges of anonymity and misuse that come with the Internet, Heidelberger believes the Founding Fathers would still approve of how it has broadened accessibility to express opinions.

"Absolutely, the good outweighs the bad," he said. "I would hope they would be proud of it." "It's always fun to exchange conversations with people who agree with you but it's nice, too, to converse with people who don't always agree with you," Ellis said. "Even if they don't agree with you today maybe somewhere down the road, they'll see things your way." Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at 394-4814 or lynn.taylorrickrapidcityjournal.com. Ryan SoderlinJournal staff "It's always fun to exchange conversations with people who agree with you but it's nice too to converse with people who don't always agree with you," says Bob Ellis, a conservative blogger who lives in Rapid Valley. newspaper before going into the blogosphere in 2005.

"It's a whole new avenue to project your speech," Ellis said. While the Internet has afforded millions of people the ability to express their opinions, it has also allowed millions of people to do so under the veil of anonymity. Media experts note that such anonymity tends to rip away the civility found in face-to-face debate. That loss of civility and the potential for anonymous libel bothered former newspaper man Noel Hamiel so much that he introduced legislation in 2009 that would give courts the ability to identify anonymous bloggers and those who post comments on websites. "Essentially, it was to bring accountability to anonymous bloggers.

It was to hold people who comment on the Web" to legal standards, said Hamiel, a FREEDOM OF WORSHIP Right to spread word has kept faithful in court By Mary Garrigan Journal staff Sometimes, freedom to worship means the right to ring other people's doorbells. Sometimes, it means the freedom not to have anyone ring yours. The evangelistic zeal that certain religious groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses and young Mormon missionaries, bring to the public practice of their faith is at the opposite end of the proselytizing spectrum from more privacy-minded churches and sects, like the one that has built a secluded 140-acre compound in the southern Black Hills, far from prying eyes. But the genius of the American concept of the separation of church and state is that both of those approaches to religious practice are protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Elders Travis Miller and Nick Krupa, who, despite their titles, are two young missionaries, ages 23 and 22, assigned to Rapid City with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have spent the past two years knocking on the doors of strangers to introduce people to their Mormon faith. "It's a freedom, that when you look at much of the rest of the world, we have that's pretty unusual. I'm so grateful for that," Miller said. The Jehovah's Witnesses, who have more than 18 million that it prompted Supreme Court Justice Harlan F.

Stone to quip to a colleague: "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal prob -lems of civil liberties." The irony of their nearly constant litigation, of course, is that their religious beliefs include the refusal to salute the flag, participate in the political affairs of governments or even celebrate the Fourth of July. Neither will they bear arms in war. Their position is that they will obey the civil laws under which they live as long as they are not in conflict with the laws of God, as they interpret them. Just a few years after Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his 1941 speech to Congress on the "Four Freedoms," a group of fundamentalists broke away from the mainstream Mormon church over the practice of polygamy. That particular polygamous sect now owns a compound in Custer County that is forcing county officials like County Commissioner David Hazeltine to balance the public interest with a constitutionally guaranteed private right freedom of religion even if that religion offends community standards of marriage or morals.

Sometimes, Hazeltine has noticed, the boundary between respecting the religious beliefs of others and bigotry gets murky. Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garriganrapidcityjournal.com. Ryan SoderlinJournal staff Nick Krupa, left, of Houston and Travis Miller of Seattle are Mormon missionaries "It's a freedom, that when you look at much of the rest of the world, we have that's pretty unusual. I'm so grateful for that," Miller says. adherents worldwide, including four Rapid City congregations that meet at its Kingdom Hall just off Interstate 190, have been all the way to the U.S.

Supreme Court numerous times to defend that freedom the right to share their religious beliefs about everything from biblical prophecy to blood transfusions. "We are probably best known for our person-to-person ministry. Each congregation tries to reach all the people in its neighborhood with a brief Bible message," a church spokesman said. So when a town in Ohio tried to force Witnesses to apply for a city permit for their evangelism, the church successfully sued for the right to ring doorbells without government permission. But the 2002 case went all the way to the Supreme Court.

In fact, the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination has taken so many religious liberty issues to court at least 23 Supreme Court opinions involving the denomination between 1938 and 1946 FREEDOM FROM WANT Meeting basic needs puts wants in proper focus By Nick Penzenstadler Journal staff Jeff Schlukebier doesn't own a fancy car, an iPad or a home theater. Heck, he doesn't have electricity. What he does have is a super-efficient home in a secluded valley southwest of Rapid City where he and his neighbors live off the power grid, largely free from want. "Life is really simple. It's trying to stay alive.

You need food, shelter, warmth and to bathe," Schlukebier said. "A lot of my day is spent in trying to achieve those things. I'm actually pretty content in living simply. I feel really productive that today I worked in the garden, or today I got some firewood." For 20 years, the man has carved out space on a lush piece of property northwest of Sheridan Lake, where he lives by himself, but doesn't get lonely with three dogs and frequent houseguests. While building his permanent home, he spent 12 years living in a harnessed through photo-voltaic panels and heats it with the sun.

In the summer, his outdoor kitchen and washroom spring to life. "The winters are different. I'm up right away starting the wood cook stove, starting to cook breakfast, then thinking about gathering or splitting firewood," Schlukebier said. "Then, I do laundry by hand. Depending on whether it is winter or summer I might spend some time in the garden or planting or going out and gathering wood." He works a summer garden with broccoli, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onions.

He hunts one deer a year for meat through the winter. He is considering bringing in goats and chickens. He says he has more than he needs and still has simple desires but has spent much of his time trying to become more efficient. He goes grocery shopping a couple times a week and relishes in the luxury of his homemade steam bath sauna with thick cordwood masonry walls. Schlukebier said if society could focus on needs first and experience hauling firewood, cooking over an open fire and producing food from a garden we might all be more grateful for what we have.

Even with his basic existence, he is far from the national poverty line, stipulated at $10,890 gross annual income for a single person. Still, about l-in-7 people in the state fail to cross the threshold. "We live in a society where there are a lot of wants; if we don't get these wants we sometimes get a little discouraged," Schlukebier said. "But the thing is, you'll never be able to satisfy all your wants; if you get something, you're going to want more. If you get a car, you're going to want a bigger car.

If you get a motorcycle, you'll want a faster one. If you go to Walmart, you'll want to come back with more stuff." Contact Nick Penzenstadler at 394-8415 or riick.pen2enstadlerrapkkournal.coni. Ryan SoderlinJournal staff Jeff Schlukebier lives off the electric power grid. Schlukebier uses solar power, grows his garden and hunts deer for meat. "Life is really simple.

It's trying to stay alive. You need food, shelter, warmth, and to bathe," Schlukebier says. Mongolian yurt basically, a large tent perched on a hillside surrounded by pines. His single -story hand -built cabin with a grass roof, is heated by a massive Finnish style mason wood stove. He pumps water with voltage.