Freedom of Speech isn’t Dead, but Freedom of Opinion is

Freedom of speech is one of the greatest ideas the United States was founded upon. Our Founding Fathers risked everything they had, including their lives for this very freedom, as well as our other freedoms of religion, press, assembly and right to petition to the government. Our freedoms were so important in the establishment of America, that they were the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech allows Americans to speak freely on their political beliefs without fear of being prosecuted by the law. Americans have the ability to protest, debate and reform. One of our seven Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin once stated in The Pennsylvania Gazette, “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: When the support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” Now in America, 284 years later, sadly we are watching this unfold before our eyes.

Just a mere decade ago, it was believed to be safe to have your own opinion on certain topics. The fear of losing a job, a scholarship to a prestigious university, your family or friends, and many other parts of society due to having your own opinions would be considered silly, and quite tyrannical. Although during the last few years, through the media, politicians, and censorship this narrative has very much so switched. Opinions now can be wrong. In school we are taught the difference between fact and opinion, facts are statements that can be backed up by research, and proof. Opinions on the other hand are an individual’s developed idea on a topic of which they have researched. Historically facts cannot be viewed as wrong, unless proved otherwise through experiments, research, or things in the world changing. But opinions cannot be wrong, for example, John can say blue is the best color of clothes, while Mary can say red is the best color of clothes. Obviously everyone has the right to decide on their own which color they think looks best on clothes, and nobody can be declared as right or wrong.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, was stopped by police after he was acting erratically in a convenience store, and proceeding to try to buy items with counterfeit money. Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who detained him after multiple resists of arrest from Floyd, was charged with 1 count of second degree, unintentional murder, 1 count of third degree murder, and additionally 1 count of second degree manslaughter, when Floyd died in his custody, landing him 22.5 years in prison. Yes, Chauvin didn’t need to kneel on his neck, but the lack of media coverage of what actually occurred smeared Chauvin as a racist who wanted to kill Floyd for no other reason than his skin color. A vast majority of media outlets left out key factors including, Floyd had 11 mg of fentanyl in his system, the estimated lethal dose in America is 2 mg. Floyd also suffered from an arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, this is a very important factor because according to Floyd’s autopsy, his official cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest. This occurs when one’s heart and respiratory system stops working, and two of the most common causes of this, is pre-existing heart disease, and overdosing. Both of which can be argued in this situation. With that being said, clearly Derek Chauvin could have been a factor in his death as well, but when weighing in other evidence, he wasn’t the only factor. But one thing is clear, this has absolutely zero racial motive behind it. This was an unfortunate tragedy that could have been avoided if both Chauvin and Floyd had made better decisions. This incident erupted “Black Lives Matter ‘’ protests all around the country. Blaming the actions of Chauvin as systemic racism in policing. Although not everybody who knew the whole story agreed with this claim, if they said they didn’t agree, they were immediately denounced a racist by those who only had heard what their preferred news channel wanted them to know. If this weren’t enough, angry protesters began going after corporations who didn’t publish anything publicity supporting the BLM movement. In unison with the protesters, the Global Integrity organization began using sayings like “Silence is Violence’’ or “We cannot stay silent in the face of injustice.” This caused corporations to comply with these standards of the BLM organization or else risk losing customers because their company would be categorized as racist.

The reason I am shedding light on this situation is because of the amount of backlash those who actually reported on the situation with common sense received. For instance James Bennett of The New York Times, resigned from his job as the editorial page editor after he oversaw Senator Tom Cotton’s “Send in the Troops” article. This article was in the opinion section of the newspaper, and it recommended sending in the National Guard to stop the mass destruction and looting the “Black Lives Matter ‘’ movement was causing. BLM peaceful protests are completely welcomed with open arms in American society, but when the protests break the boundaries of peace, and begin to cause mass destruction by burning down cities, destroying small businesses, and senseless looting of entire stores, it doesn’t seem like much of a protest anymore, it then begins to just look like criminals having a heyday. By no means does burning down a Minneapolis native, Michael J. Shoff’s small business, Shoff Chiropractic, show any solidarity with the black community. By no means does going into Target and stealing a 65 inch flat screen TV for your living room show your support for black lives in America. Senator Cotton’s call to action here was simply in the best intentions for the American people’s safety of themselves, their homes, as well as the many small business owners across the nation. But since James Bennett had the audacity to allow this article to be published, he is now defamed as a racist, who doesn’t believe in improvement for the black community.

As previously mentioned, Senator Tom Cotton’s article “Send in the Troops’’ was in the opinion category of The New York Times. If his article was merely an opinion in a society that openly embraces freedom of speech, why was there so much backlash? The simple answer is because society is now being taught to no longer embrace freedom of speech. The media now expects you to believe exactly what they want you to believe, and if you don’t, you are now classified as an unhinged radical who is unworthy of having a voice in debate. This new narrative is silencing those who don’t believe exactly what is spoon fed to them from their TV. Ultimately this is where freedom of opinion dies. Americans are faced with the completely justified fear of losing their job due to not siding with the authoritarian left. Companies like Google and Facebook have been under the spotlight the past few years for doing just this. Back in 2018 Kevin Cernekee, an engineer who worked for Google, was fired for his right-winged beliefs. In an article written by Rob Copeland of The Wall Street Journal, Copeland described one statement that had been made in regards to people with similar views as Cernekee, “a manager publicly asked on a board about employees holding views like Mr. Cernekee’s: “Can’t we just fire the poisonous assholes already?” Sure enough, less than a year later, Cernekee was terminated. When asked about the situation Cernekee said, “Historically, there’s been a lot of bullying at Google, there’s a big political angle, and they treat the two sides very differently.” This scenario plays out many times a day, all over the country, free thinking Americans who don’t allow corporations or the media to silence them, face the consequences of an unforgiving society.

The Freedom of Speech will never be taken away, radical leftist have swallowed that pill. Now they try to find a way around it to punish those who disagree with them. The main pathway they use in order to do this, is by taking away your freedom of opinion. Setting the fear in millions of Americans that they will lose the things they need to survive if they don’t comply with the left. Many Americans have lost their backbones, they would rather shut up and comply, then stand up and fight for what they believe in. This is a very dangerous path a vast majority of republicans are going down because without being able to voice their beliefs, checks and balances go out the window. Checks and balances are a crucial part of our American democracy, without it we can lose our capitalistic economy, and our beloved American way of life.