McGough only shares us the percentages of who does supported, so I’m not surprised that an existing of 27% Generation X or 24% of Baby boomers that support to control. I think that the other side of the percentage in those generations would want to keep the freedom of speech exactly how it is. Maybe it’s a form of feeling that those who want to have an offensive statements blocked is that our younger generation is being too soft or too sensitive.
Think about it, in our Republic Presidential candidates, who voice has stood out to be obtuse? Media hungry? (seriously just google Donald trump is...)
It’s very hard to choose words correctly if you don’t know your audience, anything or everything could be offensive to someone. Some people just need a filter, some people need to just not let words phase on them. Why spoon-feed words that only the younger generation would like to hear?
Let’s talk about the survey, McGough states that he
created which revealed “21% of college
students said they agreed with the statement that the 1st Amendment was
“outdated” and that 35% (wrongly) said that “hate speech is NOT protected under
the 1st Amendment.”
Now since it’s
narrowed to a subject hate speech I think this makes it easier to understand
what makes people feel offensive about. His article made me think about
whenever I should agree about the question from the beginning.
First, do I personally think the amendment is outdated? Yes,
as to I do agree in a form of that people shouldn’t abuse freedom of speech
with opinionated racial words that are offensive. I think that if people want to be
part of the world they should provide facts. So in conclusion I do agree that the government
should prevent people create offensive statements.
As I read from Gabriela Guadarrama, from her post "Should there be a filter for freedom of speech?", I find that she believes that the first amendment is outdated, and the government should prevent people from using offensive statements. This is something that I do agree with. I also do believe that people should be able to take what is thrown at them and move on, but there is a level of "too harsh". That might come out a little cold at first, but if actually thought about, it would be easy to see that no days we are being restricted on what we can and cannot say for really dumb reasons. For example, it is inappropriate to say merry christmas because people are being offended. This is something I find ridiculous, and should have the right to say what ever you feel like. BUT, I do not believe it should be okay to say how you feel about different races if it is offensive. Racist statements are something that shouldn't be acceptable, and really are not already. I don't think that the first amendment needs to be changed, but as there are limits to what you say in school, there should be limits everywhere else. So to conclude my statement, there should be limits on what people say, but not stupid things like saying merry christmas, but with racist statements. Other than racists statements, I can't really find anything that should be banned from saying. The younger generation, including me, need to take what is thrown at us and move on instead of raising a fuss over nothing.
ReplyDeleteIn the editorial by my peer, Gabriella Guadarrama, she attempts to justify the value of restricted speech. Guadarrama’s argument seems to be that due to the negative impact of ‘hate speech’ it would be beneficial to criminally prosecute it. If we decide to head down this train of thought, I believe it is of upmost importance to discuss what ‘hate speech’ entails and to what extent should the government control it.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, what is hate speech? The author of the editorial seems to link racism to hate speech, but if that’s the case, then what is racism? I think these are important questions to answer before we head down a direction that would limit our constitutional rights. If every discussion based around race or gender is going to be considered hate speech, does that mean we cannot objectively discuss important subjects such as middle eastern immigration or the value of feminism? I understand that Guadarrama intends to protect minorities from slurs such as the N-word or from bigoted individuals such as Trump, but the price she asks for is too high.
The fact is that our government, much like the did in 9/11, would very much enjoy taking away more of our rights. We’ve lost our right to unreasonable search and seizure with the Patriot Act, and our government would love take even more power at the expense of the American people. We need to protect our right to freedom of speech, because if we lose it, it would mean a one way trip towards totalitarianism. I will be honest and acknowledge that there is some immediate benefit in shutting up bigots, but the price would be unpopular revolutionaries.
Social change comes from the clashing of ideas, without of freedom speech we wouldn’t be able to enjoy that. Hate speech could very easily be stretched into indecent speech or violent speech. This would allow government officials to manipulate what we can or can’t say depending on who’s in power. Without the first amendment we could very easily be living in a nation without many of the social reforms we enjoy today, gay marriage is a recent example. If we had lived in a country that restricted speech based on arbitrary margins such as offensiveness, it would have been unlikely to see the wave of activism we saw in the 2000s.
Freedom of ideas and communication is what makes our country great; we should protect it.