Key Values of Free Expression

The first amendment protects so many of our precedents. Within this amendment, there are eight values of free expression. All of these values have very important points that have good reasoning behind their existence. However, they were two that mainly stuck out to me. Two of the Eight Values of Free Expression really stuck out to me, which were the promotion of tolerance and the protection of dissent.

    The first one was the Promotion of Tolerance. This value says that under the first amendment, hate speech is protected because it teaches society a lesson from it. To go a bit more in-depth, this means that basically the government will not step in and say you can not say that. However, society can step in and say that this can not be said. 

The reason why I overall think this is a good thing is that it teaches people. It can teach people, more specifically the youth, what is acceptable behavior in society today. Seeing what is deemed acceptable in society today, builds what everyone is socially tolerated. Everyone can agree that hate speech is totally unacceptable and just wrong but showing it and the consequences behind it sets an example and shows how it builds up a sense of right and wrong. There should be no use for the government to interfere with this if society interferes with it. 

    The second one is the Protection of Dissent. This value makes it so the unpopular opinion is protected. This basically protects the one percent of people’s opinions if the ninety-nine all have the same opinion.

This is important because popular opinion will always be protected in size and numbers but the unpopular might be shunned and beaten down constantly. In these instances, everyone will have different opinions on topics and it will always cause feuds. When people tend to disagree with each other, it can turn ugly and pretty much make people badger until one folds. If we put this on a larger scale, then you can see the reasoning that this is important. Also, people tend to attempt to force their beliefs on others who think otherwise this is important to protect those people who differ. It is just the human norm for people to force and make everyone think like them. Whether it is to show dominance on someone or just to prove them right.

Let’s go through a quick example of this. If we were to take fifty people, and the room is split twenty-five even then most people might just keep to themselves and not say much. However, if we were to have the same number of people and the room was split into ten who disagree and forty who agree then you might have a different reaction in this instance. The more popular opinion might target the unpopular opinion and badger them into changing their mind or making them feel bad about their opinion.

This is why the Protection of Dissent and the Promotion of Tolerance are the main ones that stuck out to me.