Eight Values of Free Expression
There are eight values that are apart of Free Expression:
- Marketplace of Ideas
- Participation in Self-Government
- Stable Change
- Individual Self-Fulfillment
- Check on Governmental Power
- Promote Tolerance
- Promote Innovation
- Protect Dissent: In my opinion, this value is the most important.
In my opinion, the value of protecting dissent is the freedom of all United States citizens to have the right to express their opinions without being held back or silenced by the government. The right to dissent pretty much means freedom of speech which falls under the first amendment. I truly believe that one of the reasons why the United States is considered to be so special when in comparison to other nations is because United States citizens are given the opportunity for freedom on all topics. Also, we are encouraged to have our own viewpoints and thoughts. If someone has a different opinion than you on a topic, it is completely normal and it happens all the time. In different countries, this would not be normal, and you can even get in trouble with higher powers just because you stated your own opinion. Freedom of speech is for sure one of the many reasons why the United States is so powerful. I feel that U.S. citizens' right to dissent is a right that will continue to be important in our American society.
Something that happened pretty recently in the world was the presidential election in November. I think we can all agree that this election was a little different than the rest with all of the waiting that we had to do. An example of freedom of expression comes into this presidential election because many people believed it was rigged. They were posting articles about it and some people even went to the extreme of accusing others of voter fraud. The reason that some citizens thought this was because the states were taking a very long time to count the votes, and they thought during this time, somebody was fidgeting with the numbers to make Joe Biden have more votes. This was broadcasted on many news stations and it even made headlines on news websites. This was obviously never proven to be true, but if freedom of expression was not a thing allowed in the United States, none of the news stations or websites would be allowed to say or post this. It would not have blown up as a "conspiracy theory," and if journalists published this, they would have been arrested since it was never proven.
Our right to freedom of expression goes together with our right to dissent. To me, the right to dissent is not only one of the most important values of freedom of expression like I said earlier, but it is also a fundamental human right. There are even activists who are looked up to for having their own beliefs and opinions. Some of these people are Charles Darwin, and Martin Luther King Jr. It is very clear that the right to dissent paves the pathway for those who become and those who are already famous for being an activist. The right to dissent is very inspiring to me. It allows for some of the most important events in history to be talked about by those who we consider activists. If it was not for the right to dissent and freedom of expression, the United States would be a completely different country (for the worst in my opinion) today.
