Speak Your Mind
Jenna Brooks
Jenna Brooks
Our First Amendment states, “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.” In other words, our First Amendment rights allow us the
freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press and petition. This is important to
me because it enables me to take a stand against government decisions that I
don’t agree with, publish my work, and speak my mind even when my opinions are not
popular.
To see my blog click on my government and economics blog page or click here: http://jennasdp2012.blogspot.com/p/economics-and-government-blog.html
In
many countries you cannot speak out against the government, we even struggled
with this in our country before forms of protected speech were defined. In
class I researched a Supreme Court case called Tinker v. Des Moines, which stood
out to me because it involved two 15-year old students who were tried for
“speaking out” against the Vietnam War in school. They wore black armbands to school
in protest of the war but the principal made the students take them off. In
court, the principal defended his decision by claiming the armbands interfered
with discipline and distracted the other students. However, he was shot down
and the armbands were deemed symbolic speech, a protected form of speech. Our
forms of protected speech are defined through case law, that is, the Supreme
Court interprets the constitution on a case to case basis. Other forms of
protected speech are political speech, ideological speech, personal belief,
expressive conduct and commercial speech. The judge for this case stated a
school’s “need for order and discipline must be balanced with the students’
right to basic constitutional freedoms.” Therefore, I have the ability to take a stand
against our government and the decisions it makes as long as my protests fall
under the category of pure speech.
As
a citizen of the U.S and a writer I have taken the fact that I can publish my
work without fear of being harmed, for granted. Here we are able to publish our
thoughts, opinions and ideas freely. However, there are laws that limit our use
of the First Amendment. For example you cannot publish something that is
obscene or that ruins someone’s reputation, i.e. libel. In Class we watched a
documentary called “Shouting Fire”, it described different cases of how the
First Amendment was abused, misused or ignored. One case in particular really
stood out to me, “In this case an Arabic woman named Debbie Almontaser became
the principal of an Arabic school in New York. Because of this and the fact
that she was Arabic the press tried to make her out as a terrorist. Lies were
spread about Debbie and she eventually had to step down as principal to appease
the public and protect the reputation of the school.” (Post 7 Shouting Fire
Documentary) As an aspiring journalist it was very disheartening to learn that
someone could hurt another person so much without it falling under libel.
However, it also showed me how much freedom we do have and that I am able to
publish my work even if it is somewhat harmful or hateful.
I
love our first amendment because I love to speak my mind, especially when
everyone hates my opinion. In class we were asked to bring in a song, poem or
quote that celebrated our first amendment rights. For this project I recited
the lyrics of a song called ‘White Flag Warrior’ my favorite band, the
Flobots. This controversial song speaks
out against war and drafts with lines like, "They say war is necessary but
we say war is child abuse." My opinions come straight from these lyrics
but I know there are people who have the complete opposite ones. What really
persuaded me to choose this song was its first stanza, "We
request to negotiate, we come to you unarmed. We desire to communicate, you
cannot do us harm." As a result of our First Amendment we can say what we
want and not be harmed for it. We can speak out against war even when military
propaganda is being shoved down our throats and war is being painted as a
necessary evil by our government. This opinion is shared by many and rejected
by many but even if it is hated or rejected, I can still say it.
Before this project my understanding of
the first amendment was incomplete at best, but now I am determined to make
sure it is not taken from us. The First Amendment allows us to take a stand,
have an opinion, and publish perspectives that might not be liked “The theory
of our constitution is that every citizen may speak his mind and every
newspaper express its view and not be barred from speaking or publishing
because those in control of government think what is said or written is unwise,
false or malicious,” Justice Arthur J. Goldberg said in the case New York Times
vs. Sullivan.
