Values of Free Speech/The War over Speech

         

          Within a few days ago, I found out that there are eight values of free expression. While I was looking through the article, Eight Values of Free Speech, I came across two of the values that I thought was very interesting and definitely had a large importance in our society and government. Looking at the last two on the list “Promote Innovation” and “Protect Dissent”, these two values can work together and go hand in hand when dealing with certain issues that happen everyday in our society. The reason why I see these values as the most important, especially together, is that they both protect and encourage people that have opinions that many others may not like nor would like to tolerate. The most inspiring thing about these two values, is that they exist. This gives me a great amount of hope that our society still has foundations that haven’t been destroyed yet and gives a peace of mind that there are many who respect these two values along with the other six. There is an unfortunate note that accompanies these two values though. Many people have no clue these values exist, and even if they did, they would hate it; as it would limit their authority and actions taken against others. The most meaningful aspect of these two values is that they purposively call out those who would like to silence others because they disagree with their opinion, to a point where they are willing to attack them physically and verbally.

           It is the night of the 2016, election, and the entire world is holding their breathe, waiting to know who will be the leader of the leader of the free world and be a shining example that will take us into the future. The outcome is guaranteed at the beginning of the night one candidate has a ninety-nine percent chance of winning. The night goes on, and as the election process moves forward, the opposing candidate is declared the winner. This candidate beat all odds and came out victorious. That candidate was current President Donald Trump. There was a great deal of mixed emotions across the nation and the world; as conservatives and republicans shouted praises and victory. On the opposite side of the aisle, the liberals and democrats burst into tears and silence. The following day is where the two values of speech that I talked about earlier should have come into effect. After the election, everyone should have returned to their normal lives, but this was not the case. Within the next day, a war was declared as the liberals and democrats took the roads, shops, schools, and other public areas to protest. They blocked traffic, shut down infrastructure across the country, hindered students from going to class, and some even went on violent rampages attacking Trump supporters and businesses. That war has continued today, with one side refusing defeat and trying to silence conservatives and Trump supporters across the nation. Social media platforms have even joined the war on the side of these rioters and anarchists by attacking and punishing conservative users by taking down their content, deleting their channels of information, pulling ad revenue support, demonizing them, demonetizing them, and going all the way and banning several of them. It is funny that these very people during the election claimed to use freedom of speech to speak about their candidate and their side that they supported, but when their candidate lost, they began attacking others for what the constitution protects and what these two principles that have talked about earlier. To this day, mostly verbal attacks still happen against people who just want to live their lives and continue on their daily routine, but they happen to have a Trump hat or shirt on. It is amazing that we live in a country that freedom of speech is the first thing that is addressed in the constitution. However, history has been dying in this country for quite some time. My hope is that a change will one day embrace the United States. However, the nation is severely divided politically and the 2020, election is quickly approaching. Even now the liberals and the democrats are trying to remove President Trump by impeachment. Though it is highly unlikely to succeed, it will leave its mark on this country. Perhaps this next election might see the change that we need in order for this country to recover from its civil war over freedom of speech.