Lack Of Freedom Of Speech In The United States

Freedom of speech is being talked about often recently, but it is becoming limited more and more before our eyes. Some people think this is a good idea, others are not thinking it is a wise choice. There are two sides for everything and each side has its own evidence. It is starting to become an issue that needs to be addressed. A college student named, Robert Van Tuinen, was stopped in his tracks when he was passing out books of the US Constitution. The college student asked about his freedom to speech and the officer replied saying, “Do you know the rules to the first amendment here?” The college student was puzzled because he had no idea the first amendment was able to be limited. This is unconstitutional.
The people who is fond of our US constitution and the first amendment in the Bill of Rights says that freedom of speech if fundamental for our country. Loretta Preska, district judge of United States, says in her Touro Law Review, that simply nothing is advanced when we destroy the channels of open and free communication.(Preska) So basically what this is saying is that it is a problem for some people to abuse the power of constitutionally
protected speech, but instead of just silencing these certain people they need to learn instead. We can teach by communicating with them. But, limiting freedom of speech means lack of communication. Thus, there will be no advancement in knowledge and liberty. As George Washington once said, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” (Washington)
Moving onto another reason on how important freedom of speech is to the USA.
Going into depth, freedom of speech is defined as the free flow of ideas, information, and opinions in our society. Look, being offended by the things that are being said is actually a very good and natural thing. It shows compassion and personal beliefs that people have towards a certain subject that the speaker was talking about (Mandava). Having someone silenced simply because he or she said something someone else doesn’t like is not an effective response. Being able to say what the people want and to engage in further discussion on what they think and this is great for exchanging ideas as well as expanding minds. But, if this were to be limited then we would be living in a world with ignorant and arrogant hot heads. Who wants to live like
that?
On the other hand, be familiar with the quote, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Individuals with a negative perspective on freedom of speech have reasonable and understandable opinions on why freedom of speech should be limited or banned altogether. Constitutionally protected speech advantage allows for all speech to be said, including hate speech. Most hate speech may offend others to the point of anger and outbursts. This may create an unsafe environment for people. For example, during a Halloween party at a college university, Yale, was making very offensive party themes with racial overtones such as blackface, and parties with “ghetto” themes. October 30, 2015, a woman named Erika Christakis, who attended the college, replied to an official’s email making the forty-six percent of minority become hostile.(Preska) Christakis said, “Is there no room anymore for a young adult to be a little obnoxious, provocative, or offensive? Whose business is it to control the forms of young people? It’s not mine, I know that.”(Christakis) This email she sent simply belittles the pain her minority peers are feeling because their culture is being mocked and stereotyped. An associate master, like herself, should care about the safety of students. Problems like this is what makes freedom of speech unacceptable.
In conclusion, the problems and benefits with freedom of speech are efficient to let people know how good or bad this problem is. But, the first amendment was a benefit to help the people share their beliefs and if this so happenly becomes restricted we can become a very ignorant species. Wrapping up with this, opinions are opinions. It’s not what people say that hurt people it’s the actions we attempt afterwards. After all, these are just words. Words should not be this big of a problem we should all re-evaluate this certain subject and do our own thing. If people want to argue about their beliefs. Its understandable that they should be able to with questions or limitations.