The other day in the car, The Girl and I heard a political commercial inciting voters to rally against a particular candidate in the upcoming November election.  The commercial indicated that this particular candidate was a “birther” who insisted that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

TG: I didn’t know President Obama was born in Kenya.
Me: He wasn’t.  He was born in Hawaii.
TG: Then why did they say he was born in Kenya?

I explained to her how a person must be a natural-born US citizen to become US President.  (No, I didn’t mention that one could be born in Kenya and still be a natural-born US citizen; it just seemed like too much.)  Then I explained how some people tried everything they could to discredit our President.

Then TG asked, “Why doesn’t he just send them to Alcatraz or something for lying about him?”
Me: Because our Constitution guarantees our right to express ourselves freely, even if we’re not always being honest.

We had a nice conversation about the Bill of Rights and our protections under it, but ultimately TG was more interested in why Alcatraz no longer houses prisoners.

I imagine at least some of our conversation stuck with TG, but if it didn’t, we’re free to discuss it as many times as we want.