Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

The Seuss-like First Amendment also cries out for revision. An ACLU lawyer believes Madison omits qualifiers like "under ideal conditions" because he doubts people will take it seriously. Thus, the Bill of Rights is strictly "on" or "off." Vonnegut sees it as a dream rather than a statute. He defends absolute freedom of speech but laments that people can say vile things in public while he is charged with encouraging violence against women and kiddy porn.

Once, at a debate over efforts to ban objectionable books from schools, Vonnegut asks a fundamentalist if he knows anyone ruined by a book, which gives the Reverend an opening to tell about an Oregon man who reads a pornographic book and then rapes and mutilates a teenager. Slaughterhouse-Five is not pornographic, and children have not been having intercourse with their mothers based on one...