Freedom Of Speech In America Essay

If people want to share their opinions on how the government is doing, they are able to do so without the fear of getting in trouble with the law. It’s also a way to defend one’s self from courts but in an unharmful way. Freedom of religion is another right to the amendment that is also very important. Freedom of religion is the choice whether a person decides to practice a religion or not. When people are allowed to have freedom of religion, it makes living in the US better due to the fact that not many other countries have this type of practice.

Yes, we are allowed freedom of speech, but should there be a limit on this freedom? We can only justify these points based on the Bible. Ephesians 4:29 states this point quite well. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Ephesians shows that we may use the law of freedom of speech only when what proceeds out of our mouth is edifying and useful to the situation and to those around us.

The First Amendment aims to protect the right of freedom of religion and the right of freedom of expression of all United States citizens. However, Lawrence states “The Supreme Court has held that words that ‘by their very utterance inflict injury or intend to incite an immediate breach of the peace’ are not constitutionally protected.” (Lawrence, pg 175) The First Amendment does not protect speech that maintains a sole purpose to inflict harm on other people. “Racial insults are undeserving for First Amendment protection because the perpetrator’s intention is not to discover truth or initiate dialogue, but to injure the victim” (Lawrence, pg 175)

For this essay I have picked symbolic speech and a seditious speech. All of these speeches come under the First Amendment of freedom of speech. This is controversial and generates lot of arguments sometimes on a national level. So, what is freedom of speech in reality? It states that “the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental ...”

Also, some say that you should not be exposing bad behavior or language to students but in reality they hear and see these things everyday, and by banning a book, that is not protecting them. Writers have the freedom to write whatever they want and that is a part of the First Amendment, so why banned their book? “The First Amendment allows individuals to speak, publish, read and view what they wish, worship (or not worship) as they wish, associate with

It simply says “Congress shall make no law….abridging the freedom of speech” ("First Amendment (ratified 1791”). Nowhere in the Amendment does it specify what kind of speech is protected. In addition, United State also violated its citizen’s right by creating a law (The Federal Obscenity Statute) to limit the speech of the people, which is an

It would make no sense whatsoever to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to state governments, since the principle on which our policy is based, as stated in the Declaration, recognizes that any government, at any level, can become oppressive of our rights. Therefore, we must be prepared to defend ourselves against its abuses, but the movement against 2nd Amendment rights is not just a threat to our capacity to defend ourselves physically against tyranny. It is also part of the much more general assault on the very notion that human beings are capable of moral responsibility.

The Constitution of the United States is the concrete platform that the nation is built upon which contains fundamental principles in which our nation is governed by. However, much of the Constitution is very ambiguous which leads to controversy in the court room. For example, the Eighth Amendment which states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (Baltzell). The first part of the Eighth Amendment protects accused citizens of the United States from unreasonable and extreme amounts of bail that would prevent them from being released from pretrial containment and it also limits the amount of a fine that can be given to a convicted person (8th Amendment)(Kurt). The

Based on the first amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”. We the citizens of the United States have the freedom to choose and practice our religion, freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom of petition. Although this amendment seems to be beneficial for the general public it actually does more harm than good. I do not believe that there is in fact a such thing as freedom. Freedom means the power to act, speak or think as one warns without hindrance or restraint.

There are currently no constitutional limits on hate speech, even though many community areas such as college campuses have passed restrictions. Any law that restricts hate speech is actually unconstitutional as of right now, and to move forward with an agenda that would restrict speech in this way on a federal level is simply not supported by the Constitution. Attempting to pass a law that defines hateful speech and outlaws it would be a violation of the first amendment, as it would be very difficult to do so in a way that does not infringe on other liberties granted under the first amendment. Many of those who support hate speech as a first amendment right argue that hateful words do not incite violence unless that violence already existed, and would have happened with or without encouragement. This is a nice thought, and in a perfect world it would even be true, however, this notion is not supported by the massive amount of evidence showing violent acts encouraged by hateful speech.

However, the right to free speech is not absolute. The United State Supreme Court has ruled that the government can ban some speeches that contain “fighting words,” and words that

I believe freedom of speech should not be limited. Nowhere in the constitution does it give the government the right to limit our freedoms ,that act is truly unconstitutional. If we let them limit our freedoms then that gives them the power to limit little by little until it 's eventually all gone. The people should not be suppressed they should be allowed to put forth their opinions and speak against anything they feel isn 't right. the constitution states that you can say whatever you want as long as it does not include anything profine, or violent.

As seen here, the Supreme Court found it necessary to partially abridge free speech in order to secure a greater amount of guaranteed rights to

The people are giving up some of their right so the government will protect them. The first amendment is “freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition” The first amendment is similar to the social contract because in a way the government is promising to protect you in exchange for some of your rights.

However, there is nothing wrong with fighting against something that feels unjust, but fighting sometimes may lead to destruction within the public. The law shouldn’t be based off of just the people’s opinions but also what the government think is best. It’s acceptable to do what is right but many are afraid to stand up to the the government due to the fact that they have more power.