The Importance Of Free Speech

How important is free speech? Should it be restricted or limited in any way? The idea of free speech has been around since 1971 when the first amendment of the Bill of Rights was adopted. The intention of this idea was to give Americans the right to express themselves without having to worry about government interferences. As the years have gone by, the idea of how our speech is protected has changed. Under the first amendment, it states that speech that would cause harm is not protected. Speech that leads to riots or physical violence is not protected by the first amendment. Everyone has different opinions on how speech should be protected, and most opinions are valid in one way or another. A recent conflict regarding freedom of speech is the Berkeley riot. The Rolling Stone has an article called, “Berkeley Riots: How Free Speech Debate Launched Violent Campus Showdown,” in which Matt Saincome discussed the riot at the University of California Berkeley. According to Saincome (2017), the school was sent into a lockdown due to the struggle of trying to compromise on values over the right to voice our own opinion. Berkeley College Republicans invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus, but over 100 faculty members signed letters to protest against his visit to the campus. The protests were originally intended to be peaceful, but turned violent. Windows were smashed and fires were lit in an attempt to prevent Yiannopoulos from delivering his speech. The result of the