Values of Free Expression

America gave its citizen rights and freedoms in its Constitution, the First Amendment gave a lot of freedom to the people that most other countries have. The First Amendment giving people the freedom of speech, assembly, protest, for and from religion and freedom of press. The value of the entire First Amendment may not be immediately prevalent to everyone, but it does have an affect on everyones life. 

The freedoms of expression that the First Amendment gives the people are extensive and are used in all facets of life. One of these freedoms is based off the idea that we are allowed to promote innovation, I really like this one. The freedom that we have as Americans to be able to say what we want creates more confidence and determination to go and create more. The freedom of speech opens up so many opportunities as a country and this is just one example, it promotes ideas and gives people the ability to express those ideas to others. I also feel like the freedom of speech, and more specifically the part that I mentioned, takes away a potential dark cloud over the community. Being able to talk to people about what you think, to bounce ideas off, creates a more exciting environment as a whole.

All parts to the freedoms that we gained from the freedom of speech and expression all are extremely important and valuable to the country and its history but I think the most important ones are the ability to promote innovation, check on government power, and the openness to stable change. The ability to promote innovation was referenced earlier, but basically this freedom has given way to a ton of different inventions, whether that is physical inventions or just the invention and spread of ideas throughout the countries history. The ability to check on government power is something that has been especially important in the past, this right gave way to the events of Watergate. What I mean by this is that the freedom for the press to go against the government, and speak out negatively about the government led to the public knowing about the shenanigans going on and it later led to the resignation of President Nixton. The third important freedom given through the First Amendment was the openness to stable change. This freedom allows people to rant as they would like, it has been shown to result in less violence in people as they get their anger out in words rather than actions. I think this is an important freedom because this is something that I think would save a lot of events from happening. Getting anger out through noise and words makes people feel a lot better, there is less pent up anger that would lead to violence. It is important for the people to be able to "vent" about whatever they are upset about, whether that is something personal or even the government, and not get punished for it. It also gives the government opportunity to clean through what may be seen as verbal chaos to determine real threats. So not only does it help the people, it helps the government and the country as a whole.

I, personally, like the freedom I was just talking about the most, the idea of stable change. This ability doesn't just help the people, making them allowed to be as angry as they want verbally, but also help the government and greater community. It is great that someone is able to say what they want without facing consequences, especially if it is against someone or something like the government, something that won't fly in other places. The other part of this freedom is a bit more hidden, but is just as important, the free speech ability also leads to the government being able to see who is truly a threat to the people based on what they say rather than just having a hectic country full of people who are mad about random stuff.

The subpart of the freedom of speech that I am seeing be used today is the Individual Self-Fulfill. This part describes how people are able to identify themselves and are free to do that. It is seen all over the place now with all different groups identifying themselves and being proud of themselves, whether that is
with BLM and people being proud of their skin color, or the LGBT community and their idea of accepting who you truly are. The ability to freely speak your mind, not just verbally, but emotionally and physically shows the real power of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech.