The Eight Values of Free Expression

 The Eight Values of Free Expression.

                                                           

    During the emergence and the evolution of the First Amendment there were so many important historical moments that made America what it is today. With no first amendment there would be no America. As U.S. citizens we need to think about how lucky we are to be able to live in America with so much freedom.  

The Eight Values of Free Speech that are on the class blog are a wonderful way to start to think about what laws are important to you and what you want to learn more about. Before we started talking about the evolution of the first amendment, I had no idea what it even was. I had known some basic facts from learning about it in middle school but that was about it.  

 

    Out of the Eight Values of Free Expression there were two that resonated with me. The first one was #3 which was “Stable Change”. I liked this one because it talked about U.S. citizens have the right to “vent” and speak freely on what we may agree or disagree with. This is important because it is thought out to be that there would be much more violence in the United States without this it could be dangerous.  

 

    Out of the Eight Values of Free Expression the second one that stood out to me was #4 “Individual self-fulfillment". This allows free speech involving individuals to express themselves in their own way and with all diverse kinds of opinions. This creates a society where everyone can be their own person and share their own thoughts. 

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                

    We can be happy that the First Amendment was set in place because our voices would not have been able to be heard. I think this would create huge problems in today's world if we were not able to speak freely. A lot of people already use violence instead of using free speech and I think it would just be horrible if these people did not have free speech. You can see both in real examples with everyday riots and protests. These protests are supposed to be harmless, but they turn into much more. 

 

    The one that stuck out to me the most was #4 which was “Individual Self-Fulfillment". This stuck to me because I couldn't imagine a world where free speech is not a thing. People being able to agree or disagree on things is what makes the world spin. This theory could explain something going on in the real world because there are so many different personalities in today's world. People can identify as whatever they want and if free speech and being able to have your own identity wasn't a thing I wonder how our lives would look today and how people would act. 

    The technologies that we rely on in our day-to-day lives play a big part in all these Eight Values of Free Expression. Now that social media is so huge it is a huge platform for people to give their opinions on everything online. Since we have so much free speech people love to post about everything on their social media when this would have never been a problem years ago.