Analysis Of Garrett Epps's Essay 'Free Speech Isn T Free'

In Garrett Epps's article "Free Speech Isn't Free," he discusses the United States law involving freedom of speech. One of the major points addressed is that it's not necessarily free because it has the ability to harm other people emotionally. Also, the way it's done in America isn't the only way to go about it. Epps introduces the idea of the law being in place so that people will have verbal disputes instead of immediately resorting to physical violence. Epps begins his personal argument with the insinuation he was going to evaluate both the positive and negative aspects of free speech equally. However, he ultimately uses the all of the data provided to present free speech as a trivial tool used the American public. It allows them to emotionally

When analyzing more closely, it becomes obvious that the elaborations made on the civil rights, feminist and gay rights movements, are designed to express that those involved suffered greatly for the cause. For example, Epps states that “the price for our freedom—a price in genuine pain and intimidation—was paid… by civil-rights and women's-rights advocates subjected to vile abuse in public and private, and by gay men and lesbians who endured decades of deafening homophobic propaganda before the… public opinion turned (2014).” Epps fails, however, to include the even the slightest details of what those movements accomplished. In the case of the civil rights movement, for instance, that meant equal citizenship rights to white Americans for African Americans, which is nothing to bat an eye at (Virginia Historical Society, n.d.). Through doing this the argument becomes even more biased because it discredits the fact that the outcomes had long-lasting positive

It’s widely known that it isn’t recommended to start smoking because it’s addictive, harmful for the human body and is very costly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is the leading cause of death in the United States, impacting those who smoke personally and as well as those who receive it second hand, and costs the country “$300 billion a year, including nearly $170 billion in direct medical care for adults and $156 billion in lost productivity (2015).” Also, according to Samantha Graff, an author representing the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, smoking isn’t a constitutional right and is prohibited many public, work and government establishments (2008). That being the case, the comparison strongly insinuates that using free speech is a poor choice and shouldn’t be protected in the bill of rights, which gives further bias to the negative side of his