The First Amendment introduces the idea of Freedom of Speech to the citizens of the United States of America. There are many different theories of speech that are relevant to the idea of expression. Free expression relies on eight different values: marketplace of ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, checks on governmental power, the promotion of tolerance, the promotion of innovation, and the protection of dissent. I believe that the key speech theory is the idea of individual self-fulfillment.
Self-fulfillment centers around the idea of creating individuality amongst groups of people. This promotes that free speech creates individual characteristics per each person. Therefore, the use of free speech is what creates someone's personality. Without having the will to be who you are and the means to create your personality, no one's lives would be fulfilled. Without a personality, no one would find friends, significant others, hobbies, educational preferences, career paths, or even smaller decisions like deciding if you're a dog or a cat person. The term most used to describe the right for a person to choose these things in their life is autonomy. Autonomy becomes a major part of young adults' lives especially because without one's own jurisdiction of who they are, they cannot pave the way for their own success. Based on the theory of self-fulfillment, free speech becomes the source of human dignity. Without the right to be who you are freely, there is no meaningful life to live. That is what free speech offers us. Taking these small liberties for granted has become a common occurrence.
The attached video is a Crash Course, a YouTube series which focus mainly on government policies mainly utilized in a classroom setting, which explains just why the United State's Freedom of Speech is so important. This is especially useful when describing what IS and ISN'T protected by the government. An example in the video is working for a private company. If you say rude things to your boss of a private company and they fire you, you have no claim to a First Amendment right. However, if the company was owned by the government or attached to the government in a way that they are the boss, you could make a claim that it violates your First Amendment right to fire you based on speaking out. The video also touches upon the "Bong Hits for Jesus" sign, which if you took AP Government or AP United States History in high school like I did, you know all about it. If you haven't heard, in summary a student held up a sign saying that at a school administered assembly. He tried to argue that it was against his First Amendment right to make him take down the sign. So while all of this information seems to not directly correlate to the idea of self-fulfillment, understanding the key points of the First Amendment's Freedom of Speech clause is critical when studying any kind of speech.
It is a privilege for us as American citizens to be able to speak freely and criticize our government, I know for sure if we did not have that right I would be thrown in jail (as would many others). As we continue to speak freely, think about what it would mean to have that right taken away.
Find the video here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zeeq0qaEaLw
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