Free Speech: The Power of the People

            “It doesn't. Hate speech is excluded from protection. Don’t just say you love the Constitution … read it.” Chris Cuomo replied to someone on Twitter who said hate speech is protected under the 1^st amendment. Howard Dean, a former governor, said “Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.” These are just two examples of people trying to limit free speech. If you do a google search you can find plenty of articles condemning free speech as hate speech as well as many articles opposing that point of view.

            It seems counterproductive to oppose free speech in the name of protecting the oppressed and marginalized. Yet at protests and on college campuses you hear the argument that hate speech is the problem and that people need to be protected from it. They claim that free speech is being used as a mask to cover for Nazi’s and white supremacists to organize and hurt people. To the people opposing free speech as hate speech, words are violence. In their mind because words are violence it justifies the use of actual violence. That line of reasoning allows people to hit someone who is kneeling on the ground with their arms spread open over the head with a bike lock.

            Yet historically it is this protection of free speech that has been the greatest weapon to the oppressed and marginalized. Abolitionist and civil rights activists could have been arrested for hate speech if the government had the power to regulate speech. This is why we do not allow the government, borrowing from the 1^st amendment, to make law respecting or abridging the freedom of speech. Freedom of Speech is a power granted to everyone, it is something we are born with. With it the poorest person has power to stand up to the richest most powerful person. The individual has the power to stand up to the mob.

            A rich and powerful person has other means to get what they want yet a poor person may only have their voice. With their voice they can show the world that they are being oppressed, they can ask for help and can share their perspectives on the world. If you remove or limit freedom of speech you are not going to be rid of racist or white supremacists, you are not going to hurt the well off. Instead you’ll just end up hurting the oppressed and marginalized people who need their voice. If someone says we need to protect these people from free speech they might as well be saying that these people need to stay as children or as slaves. Instead we need to allow people to say what they believe, even if we don’t like it, because only in this way can we find the best way to move through the world.