Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp , aid seemed irrelevant; the Court ruled on the basis that a legitimate action both served a secular purpose and did not primarily assist religion. Tax Commission , the Court ruled that a legitimate action could not entangle government with religion; in Lemon v. Kurtzman , these points were combined into the Lemon test , declaring that an action was an establishment if: The Lemon test has been criticized by justices and legal scholars, but it remains the predominant means by which the Court enforces the Establishment Clause.
Felton , the entanglement prong of the Lemon test was demoted to simply being a factor in determining the effect of the challenged statute or practice. Simmons-Harris , the opinion of the Court considered secular purpose and the absence of primary effect; a concurring opinion saw both cases as having treated entanglement as part of the primary purpose test. In Lemon the Court stated that the separation of church and state could never be absolute: Some relationship between government and religious organizations is inevitable", the court wrote.
Accommodationists , in contrast, argue along with Justice William O. Douglas that "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being". United States , the Supreme Court found that while laws cannot interfere with religious belief and opinions, laws can regulate some religious practices e.
The Court stated that to rule otherwise, "would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government would exist only in name under such circumstances. While the right to have religious beliefs is absolute, the freedom to act on such beliefs is not absolute. Verner , [33] the Supreme Court required states to meet the " strict scrutiny " standard when refusing to accommodate religiously motivated conduct. This meant that a government needed to have a "compelling interest" regarding such a refusal.
The case involved Adele Sherbert, who was denied unemployment benefits by South Carolina because she refused to work on Saturdays, something forbidden by her Seventh-day Adventist faith. Yoder , the Court ruled that a law that "unduly burdens the practice of religion" without a compelling interest, even though it might be "neutral on its face", would be unconstitutional.
The need for a compelling governmental interest was narrowed in Employment Division v. Smith , [37] which held no such interest was required under the Free Exercise Clause regarding a neutral law of general applicability that happens to affect a religious practice, as opposed to a law that targets a particular religious practice which does require a compelling governmental interest.
Since the ordinance was not "generally applicable", the Court ruled that it needed to have a compelling interest, which it failed to have, and so was declared unconstitutional. In City of Boerne v. Flores , [41] the Court struck down the provisions of RFRA that forced state and local governments to provide protections exceeding those required by the First Amendment, on the grounds that while the Congress could enforce the Supreme Court's interpretation of a constitutional right, the Congress could not impose its own interpretation on states and localities. The First Amendment bars Congress from "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press The practice in America must be entitled to much more respect.
In every state, probably, in the Union, the press has exerted a freedom in canvassing the merits and measures of public men, of every description, which has not been confined to the strict limits of the common law. Madison wrote this in , when he was in a dispute about the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Laws , which was legislation enacted in by President John Adams ' Federalist Party to ban seditious libel. Madison believed that legislation to be unconstitutional, and his adversaries in that dispute, such as John Marshall , advocated the narrow freedom of speech that had existed in the English common law.
The Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of any federal law regarding the Free Speech Clause until the 20th century. For example, the Supreme Court never ruled on the Alien and Sedition Acts ; three Supreme Court justices riding circuit presided over sedition trials without indicating any reservations. Sullivan , [52] the Court noted the importance of this public debate as a precedent in First Amendment law and ruled that the Acts had been unconstitutional: During the patriotic fervor of World War I and the First Red Scare , the Espionage Act of imposed a maximum sentence of twenty years for anyone who caused or attempted to cause "insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States".
Specifically, the Espionage Act of states that if anyone allows any enemies to enter or fly over the United States and obtain information from a place connected with the national defense, they will be punished. United States , Debs v. United States , Frohwerk v. United States , and Abrams v. In the first of these cases, Socialist Party of America official Charles Schenck had been convicted under the Espionage Act for publishing leaflets urging resistance to the draft.
United States , the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Schenck's appeal and affirmed his conviction. United States , the court again upheld an Espionage Act conviction, this time that of a journalist who had criticized U. United States , the Court elaborated on the "clear and present danger" test established in Schenck. Debs , a political activist, delivered a speech in Canton, Ohio , in which he spoke of "most loyal comrades were paying the penalty to the working class — these being Wagenknecht , Baker and Ruthenberg , who had been convicted of aiding and abetting another in failing to register for the draft.
In upholding his conviction, the Court reasoned that although he had not spoken any words that posed a "clear and present danger", taken in context, the speech had a "natural tendency and a probable effect to obstruct the recruiting services". United States , four Russian refugees appealed their conviction for throwing leaflets from a building in New York; the leaflets argued against President Woodrow Wilson 's intervention in Russia against the October Revolution. The majority upheld their conviction, but Holmes and Justice Louis Brandeis dissented, holding that the government had demonstrated no "clear and present danger" in the four's political advocacy.
The Supreme Court denied a number of Free Speech Clause claims throughout the s, including the appeal of a labor organizer, Benjamin Gitlow, who had been convicted after distributing a manifesto calling for a "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". New York , the Court upheld the conviction, but a majority also found that the First Amendment applied to state laws as well as federal laws, via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
California , [70] in which Communist Party USA organizer Charlotte Anita Whitney had been arrested for " criminal syndicalism ", Brandeis wrote a dissent in which he argued for broader protections for political speech:. Those who won our independence. In a 5—4 decision, the Court reversed Herndon's conviction, holding that Georgia had failed to demonstrate that there was any "clear and present danger" in Herndon's political advocacy. In , Congress enacted the Smith Act , making it illegal to advocate "the propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force and violence".
United States , [75] the Court upheld the law, 6—2. Vinson relied on Holmes' "clear and present danger" test as adapted by Learned Hand: The demands of free speech in a democratic society as well as the interest in national security are better served by candid and informed weighing of the competing interests, within the confines of the judicial process. United States , the Supreme Court limited the Smith Act prosecutions to "advocacy of action" rather than "advocacy in the realm of ideas".
Advocacy of abstract doctrine remained protected while speech explicitly inciting the forcible overthrow of the government was punishable under the Smith Act. During the Vietnam War , the Court's position on public criticism of the government changed drastically. Though the Court upheld a law prohibiting the forgery, mutilation, or destruction of draft cards in United States v. O'Brien , [81] fearing that burning draft cards would interfere with the "smooth and efficient functioning" of the draft system, [82] [83] the next year, the court handed down its decision in Brandenburg v.
Ohio , [84] expressly overruling Whitney v. California , [89] the Court voted 5—4 to reverse the conviction of a man wearing a jacket reading "Fuck the Draft" in the corridors of a Los Angeles County courthouse. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote in the majority opinion that Cohen's jacket fell in the category of protected political speech despite the use of an expletive: California , [91] the Court struck down a Los Angeles city ordinance that made it a crime to distribute anonymous pamphlets. Justice Hugo Black wrote in the majority opinion: Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind.
Ohio Elections Commission , [93] the Court struck down an Ohio statute that made it a crime to distribute anonymous campaign literature. Keene , [95] the Court upheld the Foreign Agents Registration Act of , under which several Canadian films were defined as "political propaganda", requiring their sponsors to be identified. Valeo , [97] the Supreme Court reviewed the Federal Election Campaign Act of and related laws, which restricted the monetary contributions that may be made to political campaigns and expenditure by candidates. The Court affirmed the constitutionality of limits on campaign contributions, stating that they "serve[d] the basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process without directly impinging upon the rights of individual citizens and candidates to engage in political debate and discussion.
The court again scrutinized campaign finance regulation in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission The Supreme Court upheld provisions which barred the raising of soft money by national parties and the use of soft money by private organizations to fund certain advertisements related to elections. However, the Court struck down the "choice of expenditure" rule, which required that parties could either make coordinated expenditures for all its candidates, or permit candidates to spend independently, but not both, which the Court agreed "placed an unconstitutional burden on the parties' right to make unlimited independent expenditures.
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In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , [] the Court ruled that the BCRA's federal restrictions on electoral advocacy by corporations or unions were unconstitutional for violating the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce , [] which had upheld a state law that prohibited corporations from using treasury funds to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments.
Federal Election Commission , [] the Court ruled that federal aggregate limits on how much a person can donate to candidates , political parties , and political action committees , combined respectively in a two-year period known as an "election cycle," violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The divisive issue of flag desecration as a form of protest first came before the Supreme Court in Street v. Street was arrested and charged with a New York state law making it a crime "publicly [to] mutilate, deface, defile, or defy, trample upon, or cast contempt upon either by words or act [any flag of the United States].
California , [] found that because the provision of the New York law criminalizing "words" against the flag was unconstitutional, and the trial did not sufficiently demonstrate that he was convicted solely under the provisions not yet deemed unconstitutional, the conviction was unconstitutional. The Court, however, "resist[ed] the pulls to decide the constitutional issues involved in this case on a broader basis" and left the constitutionality of flag-burning unaddressed.
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The ambiguity with regard to flag-burning statutes was eliminated in Texas v. The Supreme Court reversed his conviction in a 5—4 vote. Constitution has been proposed repeatedly in Congress since , and in failed to pass the Senate by a single vote. While the unauthorized wear or sale of the Medal of Honor has been a punishable offense under federal law since the early 20th century, [] [] the Stolen Valor Act criminalized the act of not only wearing, but also verbally claiming entitlement to military awards that a person did not in fact earn.
Alvarez , the Supreme Court struck down the Act, ruling that the First Amendment bars the government from punishing people for making false claims regarding military service or honors where the false claim was not "made to effect a fraud or secure moneys or other valuable considerations.
The Supreme Court has determined that the First Amendment also protects citizens from being compelled to say or pay for certain speech. Barnette , the Court ruled that school children could not be punished for refusing either to say the pledge of allegiance or salute the American flag. Becerra , the Court ruled that a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to post notices informing patients that they can obtain free or low-cost abortions and include the number of the state agency that can connect the women with abortion providers violated those centers' right to free speech.
Commercial speech is speech done on behalf of a company or individual for the purpose of making a profit. Unlike political speech, the Supreme Court does not afford commercial speech full protection under the First Amendment. To effectively distinguish commercial speech from other types of speech for purposes of litigation, the Court uses a list of four indicia: Alone, each indicium does not compel the conclusion that an instance of speech is commercial; however, "[t]he combination of all these characteristics.
Chrestensen , [] the Court upheld a New York City ordinance forbidding the "distribution in the streets of commercial and business advertising matter. This court has unequivocally held that streets are proper places for the exercise of the freedom of communicating information and disseminating opinion and that, though the states and municipalities may appropriately regulate the privilege in the public interest, they may not unduly burden or proscribe its employment in their public thoroughfares.
We are equally clear that the Constitution imposes no such restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising. In Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council , [] the Court overruled Valentine and ruled that commercial speech was entitled to First Amendment protection:. What is at issue is whether a State may completely suppress the dissemination of concededly truthful information about entirely lawful activity, fearful of that information's effect upon its disseminators and its recipients.
Ohio State Bar Association , [] the Court ruled that commercial speech was not protected by the First Amendment as much as other types of speech:. We have not discarded the "common-sense" distinction between speech proposing a commercial transaction, which occurs in an area traditionally subject to government regulation, and other varieties of speech.
To require a parity of constitutional protection for commercial and noncommercial speech alike could invite a dilution, simply by a leveling process, of the force of the [First] Amendment's guarantee with respect to the latter kind of speech. Public Service Commission , [] the Court clarified what analysis was required before the government could justify regulating commercial speech:. Six years later, the U. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico , [] affirmed the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico 's conclusion that Puerto Rico 's Games of Chance Act of , including the regulations thereunder, was not facially unconstitutional.
The lax interpretation of Central Hudson adopted by Posadas was soon restricted under 44 Liquormart, Inc. Rhode Island , [] when the Court invalidated a Rhode Island law prohibiting the publication of liquor prices. The case involved several students who were punished for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The Court ruled that the school could not restrict symbolic speech that did not "materially and substantially" interrupt school activities.
First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. James , the Court ruled that Central Connecticut State College 's refusal to recognize a campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society was unconstitutional, reaffirming Tinker.
However, since the Court has also placed several limitations on Tinker interpretations. In Bethel School District v. Fraser , [] the Court ruled that a student could be punished for his sexual-innuendo-laced speech before a school assembly and, in Hazelwood v.
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Kuhlmeier , [] the Court found that schools need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with their basic educational mission. Frederick , [] the Court ruled that schools could, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at school-sponsored events, even events away from school grounds, if students promote "illegal drug use". North Carolina , the Supreme Court held that a North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing various websites impermissibly restricted lawful speech in violation of the First Amendment. The federal government and the states have long been permitted to limit obscenity or pornography.
While the Supreme Court has generally refused to give obscenity any protection under the First Amendment, pornography is subject to little regulation. However, the definitions of obscenity and pornography have changed over time. United States , the Supreme Court adopted the same obscenity standard as had been articulated in a famous British case, Regina v. Lawrence , were banned for obscenity. In the federal district court case United States v.
Woolsey established a new standard to evaluate James Joyce 's novel Ulysses , stating that works must be considered in their entirety, rather than declared obscene on the basis of an individual part of the work. The Supreme Court ruled in Roth v. United States [] that the First Amendment did not protect obscenity. Ohio , [] famously stated that, although he could not precisely define pornography, " I know it when I see it ".
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The Roth test was expanded when the Court decided Miller v. Note that "community" standards—not national standards—are applied whether the material appeals to the prurient interest, leaving the question of obscenity to local authorities. Ferber and Osborne v. Ohio , [] [] ruling that the government's interest in protecting children from abuse was paramount.
Personal possession of obscene material in the home may not be prohibited by law. Georgia , [] the Court ruled that "[i]f the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Free Speech Coalition [] further upheld these rights by invalidating the Child Pornography Prevention Act of , holding that, because the act "[p]rohibit[ed] child pornography that does not depict an actual child" it was overly broad and unconstitutional under the First Amendment [] and that:.
First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. In United States v. Williams , [] the Court upheld the PROTECT Act of , ruling that prohibiting offers to provide and requests to obtain child pornography did not violate the First Amendment, even if a person charged under the Act did not possess child pornography.
In some states, there are Son of Sam laws prohibiting convicted criminals from publishing memoirs for profit. Crime Victims Board Instead, it provided that all profits from the book were to be put in escrow for a time. The interest from the escrow account was used to fund the New York State Crime Victims Board — an organization that pays the medical and related bills of victims of crime.
Similar laws in other states remain unchallenged. American tort liability for defamatory speech or publications traces its origins to English common law. For the first two hundred years of American jurisprudence, the basic substance of defamation law continued to resemble that existing in England at the time of the Revolution. An American legal textbook on defamation provides definitions of libel and slander nearly identical to those given by William Blackstone and Edward Coke.
An action of slander required the following: An action of libel required the same five general points as slander, except that it specifically involved the publication of defamatory statements. Libelous publications tended to "degrade and injure another person" or "bring him into contempt, hatred or ridicule".
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Concerns that defamation under common law might be incompatible with the new republican form of government caused early American courts to struggle between William Blackstone 's argument that the punishment of "dangerous or offensive writings. Sullivan [52] fundamentally changed American defamation law. The case redefined the type of "malice" needed to sustain a libel case. Common law malice consisted of "ill-will" or "wickedness". Now, a public officials seeking to sustain a civil action against a tortfeasor needed to prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that there was actual malice.
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The case involved an advertisement published in The New York Times indicating that officials in Montgomery, Alabama had acted violently in suppressing the protests of African-Americans during the civil rights movement. The Montgomery Police Commissioner, L. Sullivan, sued the Times for libel, stating that the advertisement damaged his reputation.
Justice Brennan suggested that public officials may sue for libel only if the publisher published the statements in question with " actual malice "—"knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. While actual malice standard applies to public officials and public figures, [] in Philadelphia Newspapers v.
Hepps , [] the Court found that, with regard to private individuals, the First Amendment does "not necessarily force any change in at least some features of the common-law landscape. Falwell , [] the Court extended the "actual malice" standard to intentional infliction of emotional distress in a ruling which protected parody , in this case a fake advertisement in Hustler suggesting that evangelist Jerry Falwell 's first sexual experience had been with his mother in an outhouse.
Since Falwell was a public figure, the Court ruled that "importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern" was the paramount concern, and reversed the judgement Falwell had won against Hustler for emotional distress. State constitutions provide free speech protections similar to those of the U.
In a few states, such as California, a state constitution has been interpreted as providing more comprehensive protections than the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has permitted states to extend such enhanced protections, most notably in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. The free speech and free press clauses have been interpreted as providing the same protection to speakers as to writers, except for wireless broadcasting which has been given less constitutional protection.
Hayes as "a fundamental personal right" that is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. City of Griffin , [] Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes defined "press" as "every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion". A landmark decision for press freedom came in Near v. Minnesota , [] in which the Supreme Court rejected prior restraint pre-publication censorship.
In this case, the Minnesota legislature passed a statute allowing courts to shut down "malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspapers", allowing a defense of truth only in cases where the truth had been told "with good motives and for justifiable ends". Hughes quoted Madison in the majority decision, writing, "The impairment of the fundamental security of life and property by criminal alliances and official neglect emphasizes the primary need of a vigilant and courageous press".
However, Near also noted an exception, allowing prior restraint in cases such as "publication of sailing dates of transports or the number or location of troops". New York Times Co. United States , [] in which the administration of President Richard Nixon sought to ban the publication of the Pentagon Papers , classified government documents about the Vietnam War secretly copied by analyst Daniel Ellsberg.
The Court found, 6—3, that the Nixon administration had not met the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint. Justice Brennan, drawing on Near in a concurrent opinion, wrote that "only governmental allegation and proof that publication must inevitably, directly, and immediately cause the occurrence of an evil kindred to imperiling the safety of a transport already at sea can support even the issuance of an interim restraining order. The courts have rarely treated content-based regulation of journalism with any sympathy. In Miami Herald Publishing Co.
Tornillo , [] the Court unanimously struck down a state law requiring newspapers criticizing political candidates to publish their responses. The state claimed that the law had been passed to ensure journalistic responsibility. The Supreme Court found that freedom, but not responsibility, is mandated by the First Amendment and so it ruled that the government may not force newspapers to publish that which they do not desire to publish.
Content-based regulation of television and radio, however, have been sustained by the Supreme Court in various cases. Since there is a limited number of frequencies for non-cable television and radio stations, the government licenses them to various companies. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that the problem of scarcity does not allow the raising of a First Amendment issue.
The government may restrain broadcasters, but only on a content-neutral basis. In Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation , [] the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Communications Commission 's authority to restrict the use of " indecent " material in broadcasting. State governments retain the right to tax newspapers, just as they may tax other commercial products.
Generally, however, taxes that focus exclusively on newspapers have been found unconstitutional. In Arkansas Writers' Project v. Ragland , [] for instance, the Court invalidated an Arkansas law exempting "religious, professional, trade and sports journals" from taxation since the law amounted to the regulation of newspaper content. Medlock , [] the Supreme Court found that states may treat different types of the media differently, such as by taxing cable television, but not newspapers.
The Court found that "differential taxation of speakers, even members of the press, does not implicate the First Amendment unless the tax is directed at, or presents the danger of suppressing, particular ideas. Hayes , [] the Court ruled that the First Amendment did not give a journalist the right to refuse a subpoena from a grand jury. The issue decided in the case was whether a journalist could refuse to "appear and testify before state and Federal grand juries" basing the refusal on the belief that such appearance and testimony "abridges the freedom of speech and press guaranteed by the First Amendment".
However, a concurring opinion by Justice Lewis F. Powell , in which he stated that a claim for press privilege "should be judged on its facts by the striking of a proper balance between freedom of the press and the obligation of all citizens to give relevant testimony with respect to criminal conduct.
The balance of these vital constitutional and societal interests on a case-by-case basis accords with the tried and traditional way of adjudicating such questions. The Petition Clause protects the right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances". Petitions against the Espionage Act of resulted in imprisonments.
The Supreme Court did not rule on either issue. In California Motor Transport Co. Trucking Unlimited , [] the Supreme Court stated that the right to petition encompass "the approach of citizens or groups of them to administrative agencies which are both creatures of the legislature, and arms of the executive and to courts, the third branch of Government. Certainly the right to petition extends to all departments of the Government.
The right of access to the courts is indeed but one aspect of the right of petition. In Borough of Duryea v. It is not necessary to say that the two Clauses are identical in their mandate or their purpose and effect to acknowledge that the rights of speech and petition share substantial common ground.
Both speech and petition are integral to the democratic process, although not necessarily in the same way. The right to petition allows citizens to express their ideas, hopes, and concerns to their government and their elected representatives, whereas the right to speak fosters the public exchange of ideas that is integral to deliberative democracy as well as to the whole realm of ideas and human affairs.
Beyond the political sphere, both speech and petition advance personal expression, although the right to petition is generally concerned with expression directed to the government seeking redress of a grievance. The right of assembly was originally distinguished from the right to petition. Cruikshank , [] the Supreme Court held that. The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances.
Justice Morrison Waite 's opinion for the Court carefully distinguished the right to peaceably assemble as a secondary right, while the right to petition was labeled to be a primary right. Later cases, however, paid less attention to these distinctions. There is a direct link between freedom of speech and vibrant democracy. Free speech is an indispensable tool of self-governance in a democratic society.
It enables people to obtain information from a diversity of sources, make decisions, and communicate those decisions to the government. Beyond the political purpose of free speech, the First Amendment provides American people with a "marketplace of ideas. Concurring in Whitney v. California , Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that "freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth. On a communal level, free speech facilitates majority rule. It is through talking that we encourage consensus, that we form a collective will.
Whether the answers we reach are wise or foolish, free speech helps us ensure that the answers usually conform to what most people think. Americans who are optimists and optimism is a quintessentially American characteristic additionally believe that, over the long run, free speech actually improves our political decision-making. Just as Americans generally believe in free markets in economic matters, they generally believe in free markets when it comes to ideas, and this includes politics.
In the long run the best test of intelligent political policy is its power to gain acceptance at the ballot box. On an individual level, speech is a means of participation, the vehicle through which individuals debate the issues of the day, cast their votes, and actively join in the processes of decision-making that shape the polity.
Freedom of speech is also an essential contributor to the American belief in government confined by a system of checks and balances, operating as a restraint on tyranny, corruption and ineptitude. But the United States was founded on the more cantankerous revolutionary principles of John Locke, who taught that under the social compact sovereignty always rests with the people, who never surrender their natural right to protest, or even revolt, when the state exceeds the limits of legitimate authority.
Speech is thus a means of "people-power," through which the people may ferret out corruption and discourage tyrannical excesses. Counter-intuitively, influential American voices have also often argued that robust protection of freedom of speech, including speech advocating crime and revolution, actually works to make the country more stable, increasing rather than decreasing our ability to maintain law and order.
Again the words of Justice Brandeis in Whitney v. California are especially resonant, with his admonition that the framers of the Constitution "knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.
In America we have come to accept the wisdom that openness fosters resiliency, that peaceful protest displaces more violence than it triggers, and that free debate dissipates more hate than it stirs. The link between speech and democracy certainly provides some explanation for the American veneration of free speech, but not an entirely satisfying or complete one. For there are many flourishing democracies in the world, but few of them have adopted either the constitutional law or the cultural traditions that support free speech as expansively as America does.
Moreover, much of the vast protection we provide to expression in America seems to bear no obvious connection to politics or the democratic process at all. Additional explanation is required. Probably the most celebrated attempt at explanation is the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor, a notion that is most famously associated with Holmes' great dissent in Abrams, in which he argued that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.
That would be asking too much. It merely posits that free trade in ideas is the best test of truth, in much the same way that those who believe in laissez-faire economic theory argue that over the long haul free economic markets are superior to command-and-control economies. The American love of the marketplace of ideas metaphor stems in no small part from our irrepressible national optimism, the American "constitutional faith" that, given long enough, good will conquer evil.
Just as we often have nothing to fear but fear, hope is often our best hope. Humanity may be fallible, and truth illusive, but the hope of humanity lies in its faith in progress. The marketplace metaphor reminds us to take the long view. Americans like to believe, and largely do believe, that truth has a stubborn and incorrigible persistence. Cut down again and again, truth will still not be extinguished. Truth will out, it will be rediscovered and rejuvenated. The connection of freedom of speech to self-governance and the appeal of the marketplace of ideas metaphor still, however, do not tell it all.
Freedom of speech is linked not merely to such grandiose ends as the service of the democracy or the search for truth. Freedom of speech has value on a more personal and individual level. Freedom of speech is part of the human personality itself, a value intimately intertwined with human autonomy and dignity. In the words of Justice Thurgood Marshall in the case Procunier v. Martinez, "The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit — a spirit that demands self-expression. Many Americans embrace freedom of speech for the same reasons they embrace other aspects of individualism.
Freedom of speech is thus bonded in special and unique ways to the human capacity to think, imagine and create. Conscience and consciousness are the sacred precincts of mind and soul. Freedom of speech is intimately linked to freedom of thought, to that central capacity to reason and wonder, hope and believe, that largely defines our humanity. If these various elements of our culture do in combination provide some insight into why freedom of speech exerts such a dominating presence on the American legal and cultural landscape, they do not by any means come close to explaining the intense and seemingly never-ending legal and cultural debates over the limits on freedom of speech.
While the language of the First Amendment appears absolute, freedom of speech is not an absolute right. Free societies offer one of the greatest rights of man, freedom of religion, so how have you used your freedom of religion? A full life demands that we express our freedom of religion to honor both man and God. So if you would like to learn how to get more out of your freedom of religion, listen to this audiobook. Showing results by narrator "John L. Under 1 Hour 5. Whispersync for Voice 4.
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