Freedom of Speech vs Censorship

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We are blessed to live in a country that has many rights, the most important is the freedom of speech which provides an umbrella of protection over our remaining rights; however, all of our rights are under attack beginning with the First Amendment which is under constant assault by censorship. The Constitution of the United States says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Censorship as defined by Wikipedia is “the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.” Any statement or image can be determined to be offensive by anyone at anytime, therefore censorship is an attack on our Freedom of Speech. No one can determine for anyone else what is or is not offensive. What we as individuals determine to be offensive to us, might be beautiful to someone else. Also, the definition states suppression of speech considered inconvenient to the government. The Constitution guarantees us the right to Freedom of Speech specifically to keep government from suppressing our speech. Many argue that there are words, phrases, pictures and ideas that are so offensive that we must have government pass laws to keep these from being spoken or discussed. They would further argue that the enormity of the degree of offense warrants such censorship. There are certain types of speech that fall under that definition, howe... ... middle of paper ... ...an trust what the paper’s say because the state runs the media. The constitution provides that “no law shall be made abridging our right to freedom of speech. Therefore all laws supporting censorship are unconstitutional and should be banned as per the First Amendment. If we fail to ban censorship then we give up all of our rights we cease to be free. Works Cited Merriam-Webster. Abridged. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abridging Wikipedia. Censorship. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Wikipedia. Fairness Doctrine. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine Wikipedia. Main article: United States Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 to 10) Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution

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