American Legal and Constitutional History

As residents or citizens of the linked States of America, we racket certain rights that m either tidy sum across the world do non ache. One of those rights is independence of oral communication, which is guaranteed to all of us through the united States governance. However, in around instances, our separateddom of vernacular rights whoremaster be coiffeed. One of those flock involves openhandeddom of regimenal brass. At this point, one would have to ask how lavatory a egalitarian country, which, like all opposite republican countries, is found on liberty of talk, find the same to a lower place certain conditions?In order to understand wherefore and how this can happen, we will first envision the concept of citizenship and the organisation of the United States as it relates to freedom of governmental livery. In addition to that, we will analyze how freedom of address as it relates to authorities can affect security and what affects current legislati on has on freedom of lecturing. Based on the above-mentioned research, I in exd to prove that flexible freedom of policy-making expression is a violation of the United States Constitution and as much(prenominal) can non be allowed.Furthermore, I will argue that flip legislature such as the US Patriot enactment can be in truth dangerous as it provides government with the power to dishonour our freedom of speech rights. Citizenship In the first p guile of the paper, we will watch and summarize the concept of citizenship. This is a very extensive process that is delimitate as the process by which some stack be include and others are excluded as members of the community (Walker, 2002). In our country, everybody living here, regardless if citizen or not, enraptures the same protections from the fair play.The concept of citizenship is important be perk up it associates us with our nation and with the law of the land. Essentially, rights tending(p) to citizens are typically represented by a continuum however, the mere creation of citizenship does not necessarily equate to equivalent representation across the board, ofttimes with glaring inconsistencies across cor serveing geographic locations or historic periods, of which invoice is rife with suits. (Gans 2005). So why is citizenship so important? Citizenship is important because it gives everybody the complete rights.Nobody can take them away from a United States citizen, regardless of his political views or statements. As United States citizens, we are entitled to a cross off of rights, which is unique in the world. The United States Constitution entitles us to those rights and guarantees that we can enjoy them. The United States Constitution is the set of documents that embody the principles on which the United States is governed. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and no other law, at each level of government, can be established without considering the rules and rights as set forth in that document.The part that is especially important to American as it relates at a time to their rights is the part of the Constitution that is noticen as the quantity of Rights. The first ten amendments of the United States constitution are more commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights, because they define specific rights that are granted to all United States citizens by the Constitution of the United States. The Bill of Rights is modeled on m either other similar documents, all of which owe their inception to the Magna Carta, the bill of rights write in England in 1215 CE.The Bill of Rights is considered to be an important part of the Constitution, and is also an full part of popular culture most Americans, for example, know what someone room when he or she pleads the fifth, a reference to the Fifth Amendment, which protects people from ego recrimination. (Smith 2003) The part of the Bill of Rights that is of concern to this paper is its low gear Amendment. Acc ording to the First Amendment there are actually some(prenominal) rights guaranteed to all citizens equally. some people remember two of them, the right to free speech, and the right to a free press.There are very few exceptions to free speech and fee press. musical composition or speaking words that could be constituted as a threat to the American people or seriously threatening the bread and butter of someone can unimpeachably lead to a civil law suit or even criminal prosecution. The right to free speech and free press fully includes any political expressions, regardless of what nature. So, if these rights are guaranteed to us, why do some people have concerns about political expression? Political view and limitations In wake of the 9/11 attack on United States a very controversial human of legislation called The USA Patriot Act has been passed.The problem with this legislation lies in its definition of terrorism or terrorist activities. The USA PATRIOT Act air division 8 02 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that it could apply to an individual physical exertion his or her freedom of speech, expression, and assembly through acts of civil disobedience. The incision of evaluator has not revealed how it is using section 802 Moreover, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act permits the FBI to seek records from bookstores and libraries of books that a person has purchased or read, or of his or her activities on a librarys computer.This change puts people at risk for exercising their free speech rights to read, recommend, or discuss a book, to write an email, or to introduce in a chat room, and thus could have the effect of chilling constitutionally protected speech. It also denies booksellers and library personnel the free speech right to inform anyone, including an attorney that the FBI has asked for someones reading list. (BORDC, 2008) Since wherefore the BORDC has documented several cases where individual rights to free speech have been violated as a direct result of this legislature.Many of these violations have been triggered by political activity. For example In June 2004, Buffalo, New York, artist Steve Kurtz was detained by law enforcement and had his home searched by FBI agents. disrespect finding only harmless substances, which Kurtz uses in his politically motivated art projects, the FBI proceeded with a Grand Jury hearing to decide whether to indict Kurtz under the USA PATRIOT Acts biological agents provision. On June 29th, Kurtzs bio-terrorism related charges (USA PATRIOT Act section 817) were dropped. (BORDC, 2003)The above mentioned instance, along with similar mistakes have led many people to believe that our rights to free speech, including and especially the right to political expression, have been limited by legislature such as and similar to the Patriot Act. Many however argue that such laws are necessary in order to protect the greater skilful and help decrease the chances for renewed attacks on the Uni ted States. Another example of limitation of political expression involves a very recent misadventure at the University of Berkeley in California.The City Council sent a letter to the United States Marines recruiting office stating that their recruiters were not welcome in the city or on campus. This was just a letter of statement and it contained no threats or any other suggestions of emphasis, protests, or demonstrations. In return for this action, which was seen as very anti-patriotic by many politicians and citizens, various pressures were placed upon the city. Some law piddle awayrs were threatening to withhold millions of dollars of federal and state funding to the school as retaliation.They claimed that since U. S. Marines are not darling enough for Berkeley, then neither were taxpayers dollars After receiving significant heat, the officials decided to blob the officials right to be in Berkeley and clarified their position saying they guard US troops just not the figh t and the recruitment of youthfulness people. (Hill, 2008) The problem that we face here is that a political view of a cities population, as reflected in the council letter, was oppressed through threats of funding elimination.Even though the political view reflected in the letter is not popular and inappropriate, that was barely an cypher of free political speech that was suppressed by threats. The fact that this happened on a college campus, which should facilitate learning through open debate, makes it especially speculative as it sends a statement that everybody should be politically in bank note with the main stream. in dealing with college campuses (as the cultivating grounds for those of the future) we should be more misgiving when sentiments show up and give them room to thrive if they wish.Suppression, such as financial deprivation, is no way to deal with a situation and utterly no way to stifle a conflict. (Hill, 2008). This opens the question about why political ex pression matters and what is so special about it? Political Expression and Democracy In order to understand the impact of free speech on a democratic society we have to analyze the basic principle of democracy. freedom of speech and expression, especially about political and other familiar productions, is the lifeblood of any democracy.Democratic governments do not control the content of most written and verbal speech. Thus democracies are usually filled with many voices expressing dissimilar or even contrary ideas and cerebrations. (U. S. Department of State, 2008) This statement is a very effective summary in reference to importance of free speech. As a democratic government, our leadership is supposed to lead is in style that we chose. This choosing of direction is most often done through political debates as we see them on TV.Democracy depends upon a literate, knowledgeable citizenry whose gateway to information enables it to participate as fully as possible in the publ ic life of their society and to criticize unwise or dictatorial government officials or policies. Citizens and their elected representatives recognize that democracy depends upon the widest possible entrance fee to uncensored ideas, data, and opinions For a free people to govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves openly, publicly, and repeatedly in speech and in writing. (U. S. Department of State, 2008)What we have to understand is the fact that free flow of ideas through speech and other forms of communication is essential for the survival of a democratic government and as such, it cannot be compromised in any way. Free speech creates a pool of ideas that allow us to come to the bottom of every issue at hand by finding the truth. At the same time, we cannot ease up to misunderstand this concept. Many people in history have lucky freedom of speech, but only the kind of speech that they scored with. This is why we had to deal with people like Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam.Their view of freedom of speech, especially when it came to politics, was definitely a one-way street. By using them as an example, we need to make sure that we focus on allowing all views to be expressed, regardless whether we agree with them. In my opinion, in this country, we cannot afford to place any limitations on freedom of political speech. Another issue that is directly related to the freedom of speech is freedom of belief. If the government or any other institution attempts to limit our freedom of political expression, then at the same time, they are vetoing us from having the freedom to believe what we want.The concept is very simple. If we cannot freely express our ideas, then we should not have them in a first place. Many countries across the world had such a system in place. Saddams Iraq, Stalins Soviet Union and others. The reason these governments were called totalitarian was the fact that their citizens could not freely express their ideas and political views. This proves the fact that freedom of political expression is what makes us a strong democracy and that it should not be compromised. Many supporters of limited free speech cite various examples where it was necessary to limit political expression in order to achieve a greater good.One such example is Germany and many argue that by prohibiting political parties and any association with them (Nazi Party) was the right thing after World War II. I fully agree with that. However, when we cannot compare Germany and the United States (at least not vertebral column at that time). German people back then did not know the concept of democracy. Ones it was introduced they accepted it and Nazis never resurfaced again. In any case, my point is that in order to help nations such as post world war II Germany reach the right conclusion and adopt democracy some drastic measures may be necessary.However, these measures should never be undertaken on our soil. We have a healthy democracy and a ny limitations would disturb the balance. Even though it should never be compromised, freedom of speech has some limitations. One of the limitations that is applicable to political expression is the use of fighting words. The fact is that he subversive nature of some speeches can cause the listener to direct furiousness at the speaker or other target groups as delineate by the speaker. Additionally, fighting words have become limited to speech directed to one person and not to speech directed broadly speaking at a crowd.The idea is that if a speech is going to cause harm to somebody or limit him or her in utilization of his or her constitutional rights in any way, then it is prohibited. Another major issue that has come out of this is the fact that many state universities prohibit speeches that are offensive to minorities. Universities have adopted those policies in order to respond to complaints of those who are subjects of hateful speeches. Thats the wrong response, well-me aning or not. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. obstetrical delivery codes adopted by government-financed state colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution. And the ACLU believes that all campuses should obligate to First Amendment principles because academic freedom is bedrock of education in a free society. (ACLU, 2008) This is a very important issue that demonstrates how political views, refutable as they are, can be legally expressed everywhere, without government interference. terminal Free speech and expression of political ideas are the very terms of a democratic system.As a fundamental feature of a democratic society, freedom of speech as it relates to politics is subject to only few, understandably defined restrictions. I believe that democracy demands that also those who have monarchic views must be allowed to propagate for their ideas. A democratic state may only interfere with the right to express a political opinion if it can prove that the direct result of their speech would be violence and harm to somebody. Freedom of expression is a prerequisite for democracy and thus without freedom of expression, there can be no democracy.This is why it continues to be important to facilitate healthy debates on this issue and help people understand why it is important to respect opinion of others, even if it is not in accordance with the mainstream. That is the best way to continue our rich democratic tradition and ensure that future generations can enjoy the same rights as we do. List of References Walker, Melissa. (2002) Unequal Freedom How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor rev by Evelyn Nakano Glenn. Information retrieved on April 28th, 2008 from Website http//www.h-net. org/reviews/showrev. cgi? path=112431032792905 Gans, Judith. (2005). Citizenship in the Context of Globalization. Udall essence for Studies in Public Policy. Information retrieved on April 28th, 2008 from the Center Website http//udallcenter. arizona. edu/programs/immigration/publications/Citizenship%20and%20Globalization. pdf Smith, E. S. (2003). What is The Bill of Rights Information retrieved on April 28, 2008 from Website http//www. wisegeek. com/what-is-the-bill-of-rights. htm? Bill of Rights Defense Committee. (2008).Current Treats to Freedom of Speech, Religion, and Assembly. Information retrieved on April 28, 2008 from Website http//www. bordc. org/threats/speech. php Hill, Kimberley. (2008). Threats against the Free Speech? The Campus World Information retrieved on April 28, 2008 from Campus World Website http//www. thecampusword. com/content/view/2264/593/ American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU. (1994) Hate Speech on Campus. Information retrieved on April 28, 2008 from Website http//www. aclu. org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub19941231. html