Free Speech
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech,
freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and right to petition. The right to
free speech includes protest and distasteful speech that others might find offensive, and or racist.
Freedom of speech does not mean that a person can say whatever they want to say, freedom of
speech means that someone’s right to say something is protected within certain limits. I believe
that freedom of speech should have no limits, everyone is allowed to say whatever they are
feeling and thinking regardless of what anyone else thinks. Freedom of speech should not contain any limits, you can’t have limits to your opinion. We are all humans and we deserve the right to express our feelings regardless of what others think. I believe it is very important for everyone to express their opinions, we may never see eye-to-eye with other people, but at least we will know where they stand and we will know boundaries. If we don't express our opinions loudly other people will and they won't care about what others think because we don't speak up for ourselves. Freedom of Speech comes without any limits.
Freedom of speech is the right to express information, ideas, and opinions free of
government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations, especially as
guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. There is no
question that freedom of speech is at risk in America, we see this happening on college campuses
often in protests, even riots over speakers and speeches, sometimes even preventing the speech
from occurring. It sounds reasonable if people want to limit freedom of speech because not everyone can agree. But if we have limits on Freedom of Speech would it even be called Freedom of Speech? If we had limits it wouldn’t be freedom of speech anymore. It’s in the name, FREEDOM, that is what the constitution granted us, the freedom to express our opinions without anyone shutting us down.The First Amendment is freedom of speech, no other amendment talks about limitations to freedom of speech so why should we be limited now.
The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment means public institutions, including state colleges and universities cannot exclude speakers or punish speech just because it is hateful or offensive. According to the Washington Post “College students support free speech- unless
it offends them” The poll of 3,000 U.S college students found that they generally endorse the
ideals of free speech and campuses that encourage the discussion of variety ideas. But once that
speech beings to infringe on their values, they’re likely to support policies that place limits on
speech(washingtonpost.com). I agree with what the Supreme Court decided over this topic, you cannot expect to go to a public place where a speech or protest is being expressed in which you relate to them all of the sudden wanting it to be shut down because you don't see eye to eye with some of their views.
Some speech is offensive to others, it could be offensive in two ways. One way is
subjectively offensive speech, which means that it may hurt someone’s feelings, but there is no
harm done to the person because of it unless that speech is also objectively offensive.
Subjective speech was seen as “Hundreds of Yale University students marched in protest this week as tensions boiled over in response to what they called the racial insensitivity of the school’s administration”(time.com).
Objectively offensive speech does cause harm to people, there are a number of forms of this kind
of speech. First form would be telling lies about other people, the second form are insults, wishes
and desires that degrade a person. The remainder of offensive speech are all those instances that
are not respectful to others. Failing to respect the experiences or feelings of other people are all
objectively offensive, this is not protected under the law in any sense. Objectively offensive speech was shown in Fox News “Milo Yiannopoulos to Return to UC Berkeley”. “Four people have filed suit against the University of California, Berkeley after allegedly being assaulted last year. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Oakland failed to protect the plaintiffs when they were beaten and pepper-sprayed during the rioting(foxnews.com).
The final type of speech to be known is called hate speech. Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hate for some group,
especially in circumstances in which the communication or act is likely to provoke violence. The
hatred is primarily against a group of people defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin,
gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The First Amendment does not protect behavior that
crosses the line into targeted harassment or threats, determining when conduct crosses that line is
a legal question that requires examination on a case-by-case basis. Under U.S law “hate speech”
does not have a legal definition, there is no legal definition for rudeness, evil ideas, unpatriotic
speech or any kind of speech that people might condemn. According to simpliphilosphy.org “There is no consensus on what hate speech is or why it ought to banned or even whether it ought to be banned at all.(…) the government is unable to offer any remedy for this problem. Fines, jails and court orders do not encourage anyone to respect another person. Nor do they set right what the offense made wrong.”
In event hosted by the USC chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF),
conservative commentator and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire Ben Shapiro said that the Left
wants to “restrict freedom of speech” Shapiro said at the event “The easiest way to restrict
freedom of speech on campus is by claiming that some sort of hate speech has been used, right? I
am a purveyor of hate speech(…)” cnsnews.com. “There is no constitutional category called hate
speech is because that which many of us call ‘reasonable speech’(…) they say that a lot of stuff
they disagree with is just hate speech” cnsnews.com. Shapiro also stated that the government
should not be able to ban even those words. He also said that the nation’s Founders did not
intend for the government to be able to restrict speech. “They also did not want the government
deciding what can and cannot be said, even stuff that I find absolutely vile.”cnsnews.com.
Many people believe that there should be limits on free speech and many also agree that
there shouldn’t be and limits to free speech. I see eye to eye on both sides of the argument.
“Supporting limits to free speech in no way means you are anti-debate”(universityobserver.com).
Supporting limits to free speech means supporting ideas that would make a living space more
comfortable, putting limits on what someone can and cannot say in public. Going on racist rants,
threatening people, or making fun of someone's beliefs, religion and sexuality are unacceptable,
and should not be tolerated. Debating on a topic people disagree with is different, you can debate
without having to get aggressive or too personal into peoples beliefs.
“How different in terms of consequences, are the actions we conduct to the world we say?” Expressing hate can cause violence, death threats, bomb threats and relentless online abuse
that leads some to suicide are hard to defend in the name of free speech. We are all entitled to do
and say as we please as long as we are not invading the freedom of others in doing so. I believe
that in some cases depending on what one has said, there should be consequences leading after
“free speech”, for example if someone threatens the government per say or the the president they
would go lightly on them, they would have some consequences so why shouldn’t anyone else
threatening another individual? We should all have respect for one another respecting their
beliefs and motives, online or in person you could hurt someone physically and mentally by your
Words.
If we were to have limits on freedom of speech, it would not be so much “freedom” of
speech anymore. You would be restricted to your own opinions, and the First Amendment was
not created to have limits. We cannot go change the constitution now just because people are are
being sensitive with their opinions. It’s always been like this ever since it was created, instead of
fighting we need to come together and support one another in their views. We cannot have limits
when expressing our opinions, our feelings are meant to come out to defend what we think is
right and to what we see is wrong.
In conclusion I believe that freedom of speech should not have any limits to anything
someone is trying to express. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion regardless if you agree
with it or not, you may never understand why a person thinks the way they do, and you don't have to necessarily agree, but you do have to respect that everyone will always think differently.