We, as a population, have evolved to a point that we have set laws for what someone can and can’t say about a person or group. During WWII, most countries were very harsh to their citizens. For example, in the article “Freedom of Thought and Mental Integrity” in Frontiers in Neuroscience by Andrea Lavazza, it brings a story written by Jorge Luis Borges, called The Secret Miracle . The story was about up a man named Hladik, a Jewish writer living in Nazi Germany, that was arrested and sentenced to death because he was writing a play that went against common German beliefs called The Enemies.
You might be thinking, “What exactly are the rules to freedom of speech?” Well, inn Bastiaan Rutjen’s article “What Does Free Speech Mean” in Belief Systems and the Perception of Reality, it entails that not saluting to the flag. It also includes wearing black armbands to protest a war, and symbolic speech are included in the right of freedom of speech.
In some ways, freedom of speech can be seen as a barrier between races because one group may feel that it is oppressed, so it has to speak loudly. In Gina Roussos’s article “Hate Speech is in the Eye of the Beholder” from the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the author states that in a project, researchers gathered participants to decide if a poster relating to their race was entitled to be under freedom of speech. One poster was addressed to “white trash” while the other was directed towards “n**gers”. At the end of the project, they had discovered that people of color had said that the poster against “white trash” was acceptable while the poster talking about “n**gers” was unacceptable because it was “racist”. The people conducting the study came up with the answer that people would go towards the poster they felt was right based upon how they felt about certain words on the posters similarly to trigger words. After I read this article I thought, “What exactly is freedom of speech if something can be blocked for having trigger words?”
In a article called “Freedom of Thought and Mental Integrity,” the writer described freedom of speech as the same as freedom of thought. The author also went on to write that if freedom of thought is taken over then that would mean there is a way to control what can and can’t be said to a higher level (3).
In the article “What Does Free Speech Mean?” in which the cans and cannots of freedom of speech are explained, the case United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 from 1990 is considered as something that should be taken away. The law had added that symbolic messages could be included into the classification of freedom of speech. This idea of symbolism includes burning the flag in protest. Many people were outraged about this because they felt that burning the flag was a sign of treason and not a form of protest (to which I agree). There are other laws that are included as freedom of speech like not to salute the flag, students wearing black armbands to protest a war, and using offensive words and phrases to convey political messages (1). (Most of these laws are sensible, but a few aren’t because if you really think about it, they could be considered as treacherous acts against the country).
Most actions aren’t included as freedom of speech because they either conflict with the set laws or have negative effects on people. Some things that are not considered freedom of speech is to incite actions that would harm others (e.g. yelling fire in a crowded movie theater), making obscene materials (e.g. handing out pamphlets for prostitution rings), and even burning draft cards as an anti-war protest (Routledge 1). The only law that conflicts with burning draft cards is burning the flag (which I think both are treacherous acts).
You might be thinking, “Who even comes up with these rules?” Well, this may come as a shocker, but freedom of speech was decided in the First Amendment. Yes, the U.S. government thought of what was and wasn’t right even though it had not included the abolishment of slavery until 1865. Not all of the laws were made exactly when the First Amendment was made. New laws are being made every year because new things are being introduced every second of every day. Almost all of the new laws were decided upon by the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court hears more than 100 cases within a year, but it is only heard because once it’s heard, it goes through a process of “Is this worth our time?”
The idea that someone or a group of people could control what you could and couldn’t say might seem crazy or illogical at first, but over time, you start to realize that there is a need for a censor. You don’t want to walk down the street and some guy is handing out pamphlets about all children should be raped by men in their forties. No one wants to hear or see horrible things, so the government came up with a way of censoring society by putting laws into effect. Some people might say that freedom of speech should be limited to an extent while others would say that if they “the balls” to say it out loud, then they can handle the repercussions.
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Freedom of speech first started out as something that was flimsy that most people wouldn’t even follow. Most of society was very strict and bigoted, but then, one of the greatest things in American history happened, the Civil Rights Era. People were finally tired of being oppressed, so they decided to break from society’s chains while following its laws. Some protests had succeeded like the Freedom Riders while others failed like Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965) in which over 600 protestors were crossing Pettus Bridge when they were attacked by lawmen and forced to push back to Selma. In the eyes of some historians, the Civil Rights Era was the era that impacted the U.S.A the most. I myself think that the greatest impact on American history was the North American fur trade (Roussos 2-3).
Some people think that maybe freedom of speech truly isn’t something that we can control; maybe, it’s something that can be ruled over and controlled. The article “Freedom of Thought and Mental Integrity” quotes Henry David’s famous quote that says “I have paid no poll-tax for 6-years...but with superior strength.” The quote means that since the state could not stop his thoughts of not paying the poll-tax, it could punish him for acting out his thoughts. It made me think of the possibility that maybe one day the government could control what a person says or thinks so they wouldn’t go against the government's interests. It may seem crazy to believe that the government could control what a person can think or say, but it has actually happened before.
To this very day, peoples thoughts and actions are controlled by what the government sets as “laws.” Some of these “laws” are beneficial to society like the ban of major corporations combining together, genocide, or any other thing that could harm anything. Actions may be controlled through a lot of things like for example if you jaywalk, then you can be fined. To avoid being fined, you’re more than likely to walk on the crosswalk then running through the street and causing an accident in the process. In the article “Freedom of Thought and Mental Integrity,” it gives an example of people trying to read or see what a person is thinking/feeling by detecting brain data in the form of connection patterns and the activation of nerve cells. The process is done by setting up an AI that can interpret fMRI scans of a subject watching a video. The AI will jot down what the video made the subject feel at that moment (5).
The thought of being controlled may seem like some idea straight out of a sci-fi novel, but there were times in history where speech and actions were controlled. A term that was widely used in Russian history is censorship. The idea of saying what people can and can’t say has been one of Russia's top abilities. Russia has been a country known to everyone as The Blocked Country because of how it had blocked internet to the common person because only 8% of its population had access to the internet. An example of a country stunting the knowledge of the population is Japan. From a social experiment by a youtuber called Asian Boss, a person went around asking if people knew what a swastika was. More than half of the people asked did not know but others noticed that the symbol looked the same as a temple symbol. Later on in the video it is addressed how Japanese education has cut off some events in history because it would portray Japan in a bad light to its students.
A stunted education can lead to misinformation among the masses. Here's an example: a person that’s protesting against corrupt government officials could’ve been misinformed on what is protected by in freedom of speech. He had defecated on a national landmark and gotten arrested for indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, defacement of public property, or littering. Now that protester is in jail because they were informed that defecating and then throwing it at a statue was protected by freedom of speech. What is and isn’t protected under freedom of speech should be known to the masses but some education systems don’t have the money or time to focus on a class about rights.
The idea that maybe the right to know what your rights are seems very important because if you know then maybe you can stop something bad from happening. People may think that freedom of speech is supposed to stop bigotry and ignorance but I have seen otherwise. I was a sophomore at Ben Davis High School when one of my friends decided to wear a confederate flag t-shirt because he had wanted to show “southern pride”. I had told him that that wasn’t a good plan considering we went to a school that was predominately african american. Later on in the day, a teacher had walked up to him and told him he couldn't wear the t-shirt because it was “racist”. He had gotten into a debate with her over if a item could be “racist.” He had told her that he had no intentions of letting the scarf mean anything negative but the teacher had let her idea of “confederate flag = south = slavery = bad” take control of the situation. This had led to my friend having a meeting with the teacher, some students that felt offended by his scarf, the vice principal, and his parents, all because he had decided to show pride for a place he was from.
Freedom of speech may allow people to speak their minds but that doesn’t mean someone won’t misunderstand or disagree with what a person had said. I believe that maybe people should have the right to say whatever they want but it has to be set to a limit like you can be able to protest outside a abortion center, say that abortion is bad and have evidence on how it is bad with scientific evidence but you can’t just shame a person that had an abortion because it conflicts with your religious views. Freedom of speech should be about being willing to listen to someone else's opinion and not feeling like they had crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.