Free Speech : Ben Shapiro's Freedom Of Speech

In her article “Progressive Ideas Have Killed Free Speech on Campus” Wendy Kaminer, an American lawyer and writer, was branded a racist while having a friendly debate during a panel for Smith College. Kaminer made a reasonable case by providing many examples from a different variety of colleges who have experienced a free speech debate. She also stated: “How did a verbal defense of free speech become tantamount to a hate crime and offensive words become the equivalent of physical assaults?” I couldn’t agree with Kaminer more. People need to toughen up and not take things so literally.  Offensive words are not equivalent to physical assaults.

The freedom of speech has never been free to everyone. Many Americans grow up with this saying and feel it to be true. Suzanne Nossel wrote her article “How we communicate is changing. So should the way we think about free speech”, published in August of 2017 in The Washington Post, and she argues that “students who seek to shut down speech that offends - through calls to disinvite speakers, punish offensive remarks or shout down opponents - have been dismissed as coddled, unenlightened, entitled, anti-intellectual, dogmatic and infantile.” (Nossel, 2017, p. 1). Nossel builds her credibility with facts and reputable sources, citing convincing facts and statistics, and successfully employing emotional appeals.

Hate speech is a term of art in legal and political theory that is used to refer to verbal conduct – and other symbolic, communicative action –which willfully attacks a person or group based on attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. Hate speech thus includes things like identity-prejudicial abuse and harassment, certain uses of slurs and epithets, some extremist political and religious speech. For example, statements to the effect that all Muslims are terrorists, or that gay people are second -class human beings, and certain displays of hate symbols like swastikas or burning crosses are part of it. Those such activities are classified as hate speech if, and insofar as, they convey the idea that belonging to a particular social group warrants someone’s being held in or treated with contempt. However, Freedom of speech is the most important and basic right that a human in every country deserves. Freedom of speech and hate speech are two opposite things. Therefore, the government needs to draw a line between hate speech and freedom of speech to protect a citizen. Hate speech should be banned and extreme speech regulated because it is one of the reasons for many negative consequences in human lives

The United States Constitution grants American citizens the freedom of speech. This single line in the First Amendment has been a staple of American culture since its ratification on December 15, 1791 (Constitution Center, 2018). The Founders recognized the significance of this freedom and the power it had to shape a young nation. It was George Washington who declared-“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter” (Global Research, 2016). The legal definition of this vision is “the right to express information, ideas, and opinions- free of government restrictions based on content and subject only to reasonable limitations” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). This sole clause has been the subject

Ben Shapiro, the Editor-in-Chief at the Daily Wire, has often been called a racist and supporter of hate speech. He

The freedom of speech is a part of the bill of rights-obviously important enough to be one of the first things mentioned. Just as it was important in 1771, our freedoms are well established today in 2015. Here in the age of technology, the internet is where the crime takes place and all could be victims. The founding fathers didn’t write the bill of rights concerned with our Facebook rants and who they can be directed to. So finding a solution to fit a 1771 document in today’s problems can be difficult.

Centuries ago in American society, individuals were not granted the free will to act and speak freely. First Amendment rights allowed citizens to do so. On a historical outlook, the oppressed fought for the rights of various groups in the United States. Although laws and situations evolve, groups in America continue to face inequality and issues with freedom of speech. There is room for further improvement; freedom for all citizens needs to be fulfilled. The impression of being free is what gives the United States the ideology of being a part of a democracy. Recent events have revealed issues with freedom of speech and questioning about what kinds of speech is protected. In order to close the gap in

Ah, the freedom of speech. Outlined in our nation’s Constitution and considered one of the most fundamental of all human rights, it gives us the ability to express ourselves without government interference, restraint, or suppression (“Freedom of Speech: An Overview”). Free speech is practiced by all types of American citizens, from the teenage girl posting a picture of a Starbucks cup on Instagram to the riled adult handing out fliers for a political cause. Every form of expression, ranging from the frivolous to the meaningful and the agreeable to the controversial, is protected by this significant and irreplaceable liberty. With this in mind, freedom of speech should surely be guaranteed in all corners of our nation.

Jill Lepore's "Flip-Flopping on Free Speech" indicates the drastic change in the perception of free speech among conservatives and liberals. Since Milo Yiannopoulos’ free speech event at UC Berkeley, undergraduate students have been protesting against conservative speakers due to a misleading ‘white supremacist’ generalization. I believe it is contradictory that conservatives are now pleading for free speech because Reagan’s intention is to regulate this right. However, I do not find it surprising that young liberals of our time fail to stress the first amendment to conservative speakers such as Ben Shapiro. In some cases, multiple protest groups and Conservatives abuse “freedom of speech” to voice their opinions through violence. For

This presentation by Eric Foner is a transcript from a conference that was held in the United States in 2005. In this presentation, Foner speaks about the First Amendment of a citizens right to carry out free speech, and how freedom of expression is limited by not only the US Government, but by other individuals trying to silence the opinion of others. Foner also speaks about the fact that the US Government has used ‘national security’ as grounds to limit free speech in the past, which has many times proved to be a miscarriage of

Freedom of speech has been a controversy for decades. There is always an argument whether people should have the right to speak freely with out limitations on how they feel or express their ideas on something they believe is true even though it cannot be considered acceptable by views of many different people. In the article “Where Does Free Speech End?” the authors Ann Marie Radaskiewicz and Laraine Flemming discuss that how having no limitations on the freedom of speech had affected a history writer’s (David Irving) life in a very arguable way. They describe that the author’s denial of what was one of the most brutal mass killing of people in the world has resulted him in spending 3 years in prison. They explain that there were several arguments

Of all the rights guaranteed to us under the United States Constitution, none is more cherished than freedom of speech--and perhaps none is more controversial. (Sudo 17) The grey zone that is hate speech and other viewpoint-based opinions play a large role in the controversy. Freedom of speech grants U.S. citizens free expression to voice their criticisms without fear of being arrested. However, hate speech restrictions are purely abstract and ultimately flawed which makes restricting it difficult. Censoring viewpoint-based speech restriction infringes on the rights given by freedom of speech, is subjective and hard to define, and may lead to future issues with freedom of speech.

People in our society do not really have a say in what goes on in our community. “Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind (Stevens, 115-116).” Society is manipulated into thinking the way government officials want voters to think. The society being those who work in government jobs are limited in what can be discussed amongst the world. This limit takes away workers and the community freedom of speech.

Free speech definitely seems as though it’s being frowned upon nowadays, especially in America- land of the free- or so it was anyway. In case you weren’t fully aware, free speech is a bit of a controversial topic now. It’s kind of taken the ‘It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt’ approach. You can say whatever you want, but the second it offends someone you’re looked down upon. Criticized by everyone for simply stating what was on your mind.

Throughout American history, the foundation on which American democratic principles are based, has been repeatedly tested. In the 1700s, the right of free speech was challenged when President John Adams proposed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Adams attempted to stop the Democratic Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson, from criticizing government decisions. Similarly, during the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln challenged freedom of the press when he took action to restrict the printing of military news. Lincoln ordered his generals in the field to control the press and “crack down on speech critical of his administration” to limit dissent against the war effort. However, one historical era stands out as a decidedly pivotal test of