May 12, 2023 • 26 mins
We continue our exploration of the First Amendment by talking about free speech. What does it mean? What can you say? Are there any limitations? Listen now to find out!
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(00:00):
Now this is the FCB podcast Network. They're greed us all for Jeremy and
they thought so we working America.Welcome back to the Growing Patriot podcast American
(00:29):
History for Kids. We are workingour way through the Bill of Rights and
this will be our second week inthe first Amendment. Last week we talked
about the very first thing, whichis the freedom of religion. This week
freedom of speech. Here are Lucyand her mom. Name is Lucy.
(00:56):
Our love us and from India.Some of the things I like to do
are playing sports, playing with friendsand going shopping. We are lucky at
freedom of speech because we could sayanything. But in some countries you have
to just stick what other You haveto stick what other people say, like
(01:21):
the king, what they want youto think. So, what are some
examples of freedom of speech that ifyou don't like a business that open and
it's not good and it has stuffthat is a little pricey but it's not
(01:42):
good quality, you can just saythat you don't like it, so you
can blast them. Can you blastthem online? Too? Is that part
of Fredom's speech? Yes? Andwhat's another example? If you don't like
a person and you control mean youwant to go but you shouldn't see it
(02:07):
because you don't want to let yousifty and speech. That was a great
overview and introduction. And now we'regoing to be joined by one of our
favorite guests, Tony Williams from theBill of Rights Institute, to tell us
(02:28):
a little more. Tony, welcomeback. It's always nice to have you
on the show. Yeah, thankyou very much for having me. Always
a pleasure. Well, in theFirst Amendment, it says that Congress will
make no law abridging the freedom ofspeech. So I just want to start
right there. What does abridging mean? Yeah, I did. It's a
great place to start with the Constitutionitself, and it means that Congress cannot
(02:53):
buylate your free speech. You cannottake away your free speech. Now that
doesn't mean you can literally say whateveryou want, but because there are some
reasonable limitations. However, it isa cherished right that government cannot take away
in this case, specifically Congress.And you know, it supports that very
(03:16):
important principle of a limited government absolutely. So, like Lucy talked about in
our introduction, if you don't likea business, maybe not shopping there or
even telling other people, you know, tweeting something or posting something about how
you didn't like doing business with them. That can be a way to exercise
your free speech. What you wearcan be a way to exercise your free
(03:38):
speech. So what does the bigphase of free speech really mean? Yeah,
I think those are great examples.Actually, you know, I think
that regarding our constitutional right, oneof the most important ways we understand it
living in America is that in arepresentative government and a demockocracy, you know,
(04:00):
we have to give our consent,and part of that is free speech.
And on top of that, youknow it a lot. Free speech
is that right that allows us ascitizens to debate and to deliberate and to
share our viewpoints freely with each otherso that we can try to figure out
(04:25):
the common good and good just lawsand so forth. So I think that's
really important too. A third pointI might want to bring up real quick
is that, you know, itgives us the right to criticize our government
officials and to criticize the government orother things that we don't like in society.
And that's perfectly okay, you know, we should try to do respectfully,
(04:46):
but we do have that right,and it gives us the right to
hold certain viewpoints, right, whetherthey're about politics or the economy, our
society, our culture, our ownreligion that we practice. You know,
these are important viewpoints that an individualhas that we want protected. And finally,
(05:08):
I think you mentioned this one already. It's that that self expression,
right, whether it's an art oror other actions and speaking that you know,
express kind of who we are personally, right, and all these things
do support that right. My mypolitical views, who I am, you
(05:29):
know, uh, my right toworship freely, all that is part of
free speech. So another thing thatLucy said that I thought was a great
point was that just because you can'tsay whatever you want, and even though
it might be kind of mean,that doesn't mean you always should. Because
you can, you can abuse thatright exactly as I alluded to earlier.
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There are some reasonable limitations on freefree speech. There's a couple of famous
examples. One is, you know, you can't y'all fire in a crowded
theater, right and now if there'sa fire or you should let someone know,
of course, but you just can'tyell it with the intention of you
know, you know, people beingtrampled trying to escape and causing a panic
(06:12):
you know, you can't do that. You can't incite violence. Uh you
know, famous example who you can'tthreaten the president that that breaks federal laws.
But you know, but you shouldn'tthreaten anyone either, so and that's
also illegal, um and so.And you also can't slander someone. And
(06:32):
what I mean by that is,you know, you can't say such bad
things about them that it hurts theirbusiness or you know deeply, you know,
sort of ruins their reputation, thatkind of thing. So, uh,
you know, we do have somereasonable limits. Now exactly what those
(06:54):
limits are, you know, there'sa lot of Supreme Court cases and so
forth, which kind of can getconflict heated and lawyers figure all this stuff
out, but there are we needto understand there are reasonable limits. And
there shouldn't be excessive limits on ourfree speech, but there should be reasonable
limits, right. And that's trueof the Bill of Rights in general,
(07:17):
that there are reasonable limits on mostof the rights. Sure, and even
in the things that aren't limited,you know, you still want to be
a nice person. You know,you don't want to say mean things just
because you won't go to jail.But at the same time, um,
you know you don't want to infringeus. You know, the word is
in the Bill of Rights m insome places, but on other people's rights.
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You know, someone might say somethingthat I disagree with or that hurts
my feelings. Um, you knowthat I think is just silly. But
I'm not going to call the police. I'm not going to you know,
say that they shouldn't be allowed to. And that's that's an important distinction that
we have in America. Yeah,and you know, I think it's one
of the dangers in our society actuallythat you see it on social media.
(08:03):
You see it on some college campuses, in some schools, businesses, and
so forth, that a lot offree speech is actually being shut down right
or prevented because people feel like,you know, someone might be offended,
or you know, it might hurtsomeone's feelings, or maybe I disagree with
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it, and maybe I just don'twant to hear someone else's point of view.
And you know, I think thatthat's not a good road to go
down. That's a pretty dangerous pathbecause then you know, it allows all
of these institutions, as I said, schools, colleges, corporations, and
others social media. You know,it gives them the right to basically censor
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our speech and kind of decide what'sacceptable and what's not acceptable. And no,
I totally agree that we should alwaysbe respectful and tolerant of other people's
points of view, but you know, we shouldn't enter into a situation where
we're allowing institutions to censor a lotof speech. Now. An important distinction,
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though, is the Constitution, theBill of Rights. The First Amendment
is actually really a limit on governmentright. And so while these are private
institutions, many of them, Ithink what's wonderful about Americans is that we
still have an expectation. We stillwant to enjoy our free speech. So
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whether it's the government or whether it'sa private institution, to Americans, it
doesn't really matter, even though underthe law does. But we want to
exercise our free speech. We wantto be able to say what's on our
mind in a respectful way. AndI think that that's a very good characteristic
of Americans, and I think weshould protect that and defend that absolutely.
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And that censorship you talked about,is that something our founding fathers would have
known about, right well, oncein a while, they even did it
themselves. Actually, for sure,you know, one of the most infamous
examples from that founding period is duringthe presidency of John Adams, the Alien
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and Sedition Acts were passed, andthat was an attempt to shut down political
speech, opposing political speech, newspapereditors and so forth from saying things bad
about the Adams administration. I wouldlike to point out that Adams himself did
not support the bill when it becamelaw, but he did sign it into
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law. So this was really acongressional measure, but he did sign it
into law, and it had achill oving effect on free speech. Guy
spoke, uh, spoke ill aboutPresident Adams, and he was actually thrown
in jail, you know. Andand and that's the kind of censorship of
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speech that that we really don't want. But um, you know, they
exercise a lot of free speech duringthat time. And sometimes things can get
nasty during elections and so forth,maybe a little personal attacks and so forth.
But but you know, we stillcherish this right in America in many
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similar ways to the Founders, andI think that that's a very good thing.
I agree absolutely. And why whydo you think our founders put it,
you know, right up front inthe first Amendment. It's you know,
the second right that's listed in thewhole Bill of rights. Right,
Well, uh, you know,look, in general, they really thought
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free speech was important. And Imentioned the reasons why we have free speech
in my opening remarks, and youknow, I think that those ideas that
I had really actually came right fromthe founders themselves, that they really thought
free speech was essential to self government. It was essential to citizens debating and
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deliberating. Otherwise self government just doesn'twork, right because in a monarchy,
you're a subject. You're told whatto do, right, you're told what
to believe. And in a democracyyou have the right to choose, but
you have to deliberate. You haveto discuss and debate with your fellow citizens
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so that you can figure out whatkind of laws you want to live under,
for example. But beyond the politicalspeech, you know, it's just
really important that they just thought itwas part of a free society, right
that just living interacting with your allof citizens, you know, the way
you know you operated a business,and your religious opinions, these are all
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part and parcel every single day ofan exercise of that freedom to speak as
you choose. So it's political butit had that social dimension as well of
living in a free society. Youknow, we might understand that well by
looking at places that don't have thatkind of free speech today, maybe in
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a place like North Korea, China, Iran, some other countries where people
don't have a lot of free speech, where the government regularly censors social media,
where censors opinions, where you canbe arrested for criticizing the government or
its leaders. I know Americans don'twant to live in that kind of society,
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and I would bet a lot ofpeople in the society would like to
exercise more free speech as well.Yes, definitely. And you know what
you talk done as well is theywere our founders were creating something really innovative
when they created America, something thatthe world had not seen before. And
they wanted to make sure that wedidn't have a leader, like a king,
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who would tell us what to sayand what you could wear, and
you know, what you could express, you know, so that was a
pretty important move. It was abig move away from having a king,
I think, right. It wasthe the ability to basically live your life
how you wanted to, and partof that was, you know, your
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speech and your opinions, Like Isaid, economic opinions, political opinions,
religious opinions. You know, ThomasJefferson spoke eloquently many many times about you
know, how these opinions are justyou know, part of who you are,
and that was very important. Soyeah, you know, the founders
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thought it was really critical to selfgovernance in America, one of the most
fundamental rights that supported all other rights, you know. But they did also
know that we were going to havedifferent opinions, right because of human nature.
We were going to look at thingsa little differently, whether it's this
political issue or that issue or soforth. We were going to have different
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religious opinions. They knew that thatwas part of human nature, and they
knew that you couldn't change that withouttaking away people's freedom, or you know,
you couldn't force everyone to have thesame opinion. So part of the
living in a free society was thatyou were going to have to learn how
to deal how to accept the factthat people had different opinions than you,
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right, And that's not always easy. But you know, an old quote
that I remember from my childhood wasthat you know, I may not agree
with you, but we can agreeto just to agree, but we have
to do so agreeably, right,we have to do so kindly, we
have to do so respectfully. Wealso used to say things like I may
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not agree with you, but I'lldefend your right to say what you want.
And so I think those couple ofquotes are really good because they show
that, at least I know,when I was growing up, you know,
we really took free speech seriously,and we were also willing to listen
to other points of view, Soso important we're not listening to each other
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anymore. And that's not only affectingour political system and how we do politics,
but it's also affecting how we relateto each other in civil society.
And if we want to be civiltowards each other, part of that civility
requires us to respect each other's freespeech and respect each other's opinions even when
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we disagree absolutely. And that wasthat's another thing that our founders knew all
about, because, as we've mentionedon the show before, they didn't agree
on everything, and they got intosome pretty heated arguments when they were they
were creating our country or even decidingto become independent. You know, independence
wasn't even something they all agreed onin the beginning, but they had to
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come together and share their opinions andhave conversations and debates and sometimes arguments even
and come up with what they thoughtwould be best for everyone. Absolutely,
there was a great deal of disagreementover whether we should declare independence. There
was a great deal of debate anddiscussion, deliberation over whether we should ratify
the Constitution. It was even agreat deal of debate in Congress whether we
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needed a Bill of Rights in seventeeneighty nine and seventeen nineties. So you
know, all those debates were reallycentral to figuring out, you know,
and and creating establishing our republic conformof government. And those debates were vigorous,
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they were strong, and people heldstrong points of view, and yet
in the end they learn to listen, they learn to compromise, they learn
to listen to the other side andmove forward collectively. Now, for those
who might not remember in a previousepisode, can you give us a reminder
what it means to have a republicanform of government, because that definitely goes
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along with free speech as well.Right, well, a republic a republican
form of government is where you haverepresentatives, right, And so some people
call our government democracy or our representativedemocracy. Some call it a republic,
some call it a constitutional republic.It basically all means self government, right,
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And in our system, we haverepresentatives in Congress and also in our
state legislators who represent us, right, and we give our consent for them
to represent us, and give ourconsent through through our free speech. Yes,
I was just going to say thatI think a vote is really an
exercise of free speech in itself.You know, I prefer this candidate to
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that candidate. Yeah, I thinkthat's really important. Voting is the most
obvious and essential way. But aquick story, you know, I was
driving past the Williamsburg Courthouse in Williamsburg, right right near my house the other
day, and I saw about twentyor thirty people holding up signs, and
I thought, I wonder I lookedover kind I was trying to drive,
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so I kept my eyes on theroad that I kind of looked over kind
I was on their signs, Andwhether I agree with it or not,
it was just really wonderful to seeAmerican citizens standing out there believing in some
cause and trying to persuade others thatyou should agree with them, and you
didn't have to, right, Butthey were exercising their free speech and right
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to assemble peacefully, and I wasdragging by, and I was exercising my
right to maybe yell a few wordsof encouragement or to not say anything at
all. Right, we all andwe all went about our day. So,
m Yeah, I think that thatfree speech in action, right,
that practical free speech we enjoy everyday is really a wonderful thing. As
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I said, in America, Yeah, and so many of us will you
know, either vote or decide whereto shop, or like you said,
you can drive by. You cangive them a thumbs up when you drive
by, or thumbs down, ornot say anything at all. And there
are so many little ways in ourlives that all of us, even kids
who can't vote yet or drive,and we exercise our free speech in so
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many little ways every day that I'mnot sure that we notice it all the
time. And it seems like oneof those things that you notice more if
you start losing those freedoms exactly,right, Uh, And and you know
I think that, yeah, Ithink we do it every day. There's
so many examples, you know,but you know, when we leave our
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view online or when we're talking toour friend or interacting with teachers and adults,
our parents, you know, wehave we have that ability to express
who we are and express our opinions, and sometimes our opinions are wrong,
and you know that's why we listento others too. And and so that
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those kinds of daily interactions I thinkare really important sort of training ground,
if you will, as citizens everyday for for learning how to interact with
each other in a in a productiveway politically, but also in our society
and our civil society. So Lucywas saying one thing that she loves to
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do, well, she gave usthree things, and really they were all
first Amendment. One was just beingwith her friends. One was being on
a sports team playing sports, andthose are certainly both freedom of assembly.
And then she loves to shop,and I was thinking, it's money.
How shopping is actually you know,a freedom of speech issue. Sometimes she
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can decide where, you know,maybe she'll buy a T shirt with a
message on it that you know,some people love and some people don't,
or some people don't care at all. But she that's, you know,
something you want to say or acharacter on it that you like. And
like you said, in some countries, you know, even what you wear
is very limited. So having thatfreedom of expression to go shopping, it's
something that we don't always think about, but it's it's something special. Yeah,
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there was an important Supreme Court casein the nineteen sixties about the Vietnam
War and some students were actually protestingthe war and they wore a black horn
band to protest the war. Andthey weren't disrupting class or that, you
know, they weren't doing anything wrongand they were just saying, I don't
agree with this war. Well,they were actually punished, but then the
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Supreme Court reversed that punishment and saidthat no, the students right to this
speech. But they weren't even sayinganything, which is interesting, right,
so as symbolic speech, right inthe clothes they wore, the symbols they
wore, they were expressing some views. And really, you know, sometimes
when we get dressed, it's justan expression of who we are generally,
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So maybe every day we're sort ofexpressing who we are, and maybe that's
sort of an artistic expression of whowe are, and that's a form of
free speech. It's a form ofsymbolic speech. So what are some of
the things that we can do,you know, in our in our everyday
lives, to support free speech andto be good ambassadors of free speech.
(23:38):
I love that question because I can'tstate enough how important it is in our
society and just as America kins ingeneral, to support other people's free speech.
Right, we want to assert ourown free speech, but to be
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respectful, to listen, to nottry to shut down other people, or
maybe maybe maybe the young people listeningto her or the words cancel other people's
speech, right that. I thinkthat's very dangerous. And so the more
we can support each other and say, hey, hey, let's listen to
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what he has to say. Wemay not agree with what this person is
saying, but let's listen. Let'sgive this person or her a fair chance
to speak their mind. The morewe do that every day, like you're
saying, the more we do itin our classrooms, the more we do
it at work, the more wedo it when we're having dinner with friends
and what have you. I thinkthe better off we're going to be,
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because I think we're losing some ofthat, and that's troubling. To me,
Yes, me too. I agree. The founders put it right at
the top of the list in theBill of Rights for a reason, and
it's because it's so important. It'ssomething that we should treasure and appreciate and
protect for all the people yet tocome. I agree. I don't know
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about you, but I love listeningto audiobooks, and when I pick out
a book, I always look forthe word unabridged, which means that nothing
is left out. Everything that thewriter wrote in the print edition is going
to be read out loud in theaudiobook edition. So when our founders wrote
that the freedom of speech would notbe abridged, it means that nothing will
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be left out. As long asyou're not hurting someone else and infringing on
their rights, you can say anything. And that is a huge deal,
even though it might not seem likeit. That's because we're used to it.
So it's important to keep protecting thatright, even for people that we
disagree with, so that we canalways protect our freedom of speech. Thanks
so much for listening. Remember youcan find us at Growing patriots dot com
(25:56):
and on Instagram, Facebook, andTwitter at Growing Patriots. We'll see you
next time when we talk about freedomof the press, they create us solved
Jeremy Standing, and they fuck sowe would be America Land. This has
(26:22):
been a presentation of the FCB podcastNetwork, where real talk lifts. Visit
us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
Now this is the FCB podcast Network. They're greed us all for Jeremy and
they thought so we working America.Welcome back to the Growing Patriot podcast American
(00:29):
History for Kids. We are workingour way through the Bill of Rights and
this will be our second week inthe first Amendment. Last week we talked
about the very first thing, whichis the freedom of religion. This week
freedom of speech. Here are Lucyand her mom. Name is Lucy.
(00:56):
Our love us and from India.Some of the things I like to do
are playing sports, playing with friendsand going shopping. We are lucky at
freedom of speech because we could sayanything. But in some countries you have
to just stick what other You haveto stick what other people say, like
(01:21):
the king, what they want youto think. So, what are some
examples of freedom of speech that ifyou don't like a business that open and
it's not good and it has stuffthat is a little pricey but it's not
(01:42):
good quality, you can just saythat you don't like it, so you
can blast them. Can you blastthem online? Too? Is that part
of Fredom's speech? Yes? Andwhat's another example? If you don't like
a person and you control mean youwant to go but you shouldn't see it
(02:07):
because you don't want to let yousifty and speech. That was a great
overview and introduction. And now we'regoing to be joined by one of our
favorite guests, Tony Williams from theBill of Rights Institute, to tell us
(02:28):
a little more. Tony, welcomeback. It's always nice to have you
on the show. Yeah, thankyou very much for having me. Always
a pleasure. Well, in theFirst Amendment, it says that Congress will
make no law abridging the freedom ofspeech. So I just want to start
right there. What does abridging mean? Yeah, I did. It's a
great place to start with the Constitutionitself, and it means that Congress cannot
(02:53):
buylate your free speech. You cannottake away your free speech. Now that
doesn't mean you can literally say whateveryou want, but because there are some
reasonable limitations. However, it isa cherished right that government cannot take away
in this case, specifically Congress.And you know, it supports that very
(03:16):
important principle of a limited government absolutely. So, like Lucy talked about in
our introduction, if you don't likea business, maybe not shopping there or
even telling other people, you know, tweeting something or posting something about how
you didn't like doing business with them. That can be a way to exercise
your free speech. What you wearcan be a way to exercise your free
(03:38):
speech. So what does the bigphase of free speech really mean? Yeah,
I think those are great examples.Actually, you know, I think
that regarding our constitutional right, oneof the most important ways we understand it
living in America is that in arepresentative government and a demockocracy, you know,
(04:00):
we have to give our consent,and part of that is free speech.
And on top of that, youknow it a lot. Free speech
is that right that allows us ascitizens to debate and to deliberate and to
share our viewpoints freely with each otherso that we can try to figure out
(04:25):
the common good and good just lawsand so forth. So I think that's
really important too. A third pointI might want to bring up real quick
is that, you know, itgives us the right to criticize our government
officials and to criticize the government orother things that we don't like in society.
And that's perfectly okay, you know, we should try to do respectfully,
(04:46):
but we do have that right,and it gives us the right to
hold certain viewpoints, right, whetherthey're about politics or the economy, our
society, our culture, our ownreligion that we practice. You know,
these are important viewpoints that an individualhas that we want protected. And finally,
(05:08):
I think you mentioned this one already. It's that that self expression,
right, whether it's an art oror other actions and speaking that you know,
express kind of who we are personally, right, and all these things
do support that right. My mypolitical views, who I am, you
(05:29):
know, uh, my right toworship freely, all that is part of
free speech. So another thing thatLucy said that I thought was a great
point was that just because you can'tsay whatever you want, and even though
it might be kind of mean,that doesn't mean you always should. Because
you can, you can abuse thatright exactly as I alluded to earlier.
(05:49):
There are some reasonable limitations on freefree speech. There's a couple of famous
examples. One is, you know, you can't y'all fire in a crowded
theater, right and now if there'sa fire or you should let someone know,
of course, but you just can'tyell it with the intention of you
know, you know, people beingtrampled trying to escape and causing a panic
(06:12):
you know, you can't do that. You can't incite violence. Uh you
know, famous example who you can'tthreaten the president that that breaks federal laws.
But you know, but you shouldn'tthreaten anyone either, so and that's
also illegal, um and so.And you also can't slander someone. And
(06:32):
what I mean by that is,you know, you can't say such bad
things about them that it hurts theirbusiness or you know deeply, you know,
sort of ruins their reputation, thatkind of thing. So, uh,
you know, we do have somereasonable limits. Now exactly what those
(06:54):
limits are, you know, there'sa lot of Supreme Court cases and so
forth, which kind of can getconflict heated and lawyers figure all this stuff
out, but there are we needto understand there are reasonable limits. And
there shouldn't be excessive limits on ourfree speech, but there should be reasonable
limits, right. And that's trueof the Bill of Rights in general,
(07:17):
that there are reasonable limits on mostof the rights. Sure, and even
in the things that aren't limited,you know, you still want to be
a nice person. You know,you don't want to say mean things just
because you won't go to jail.But at the same time, um,
you know you don't want to infringeus. You know, the word is
in the Bill of Rights m insome places, but on other people's rights.
(07:40):
You know, someone might say somethingthat I disagree with or that hurts
my feelings. Um, you knowthat I think is just silly. But
I'm not going to call the police. I'm not going to you know,
say that they shouldn't be allowed to. And that's that's an important distinction that
we have in America. Yeah,and you know, I think it's one
of the dangers in our society actuallythat you see it on social media.
(08:03):
You see it on some college campuses, in some schools, businesses, and
so forth, that a lot offree speech is actually being shut down right
or prevented because people feel like,you know, someone might be offended,
or you know, it might hurtsomeone's feelings, or maybe I disagree with
(08:26):
it, and maybe I just don'twant to hear someone else's point of view.
And you know, I think thatthat's not a good road to go
down. That's a pretty dangerous pathbecause then you know, it allows all
of these institutions, as I said, schools, colleges, corporations, and
others social media. You know,it gives them the right to basically censor
(08:50):
our speech and kind of decide what'sacceptable and what's not acceptable. And no,
I totally agree that we should alwaysbe respectful and tolerant of other people's
points of view, but you know, we shouldn't enter into a situation where
we're allowing institutions to censor a lotof speech. Now. An important distinction,
(09:16):
though, is the Constitution, theBill of Rights. The First Amendment
is actually really a limit on governmentright. And so while these are private
institutions, many of them, Ithink what's wonderful about Americans is that we
still have an expectation. We stillwant to enjoy our free speech. So
(09:37):
whether it's the government or whether it'sa private institution, to Americans, it
doesn't really matter, even though underthe law does. But we want to
exercise our free speech. We wantto be able to say what's on our
mind in a respectful way. AndI think that that's a very good characteristic
of Americans, and I think weshould protect that and defend that absolutely.
(10:03):
And that censorship you talked about,is that something our founding fathers would have
known about, right well, oncein a while, they even did it
themselves. Actually, for sure,you know, one of the most infamous
examples from that founding period is duringthe presidency of John Adams, the Alien
(10:28):
and Sedition Acts were passed, andthat was an attempt to shut down political
speech, opposing political speech, newspapereditors and so forth from saying things bad
about the Adams administration. I wouldlike to point out that Adams himself did
not support the bill when it becamelaw, but he did sign it into
(10:50):
law. So this was really acongressional measure, but he did sign it
into law, and it had achill oving effect on free speech. Guy
spoke, uh, spoke ill aboutPresident Adams, and he was actually thrown
in jail, you know. Andand and that's the kind of censorship of
(11:11):
speech that that we really don't want. But um, you know, they
exercise a lot of free speech duringthat time. And sometimes things can get
nasty during elections and so forth,maybe a little personal attacks and so forth.
But but you know, we stillcherish this right in America in many
(11:35):
similar ways to the Founders, andI think that that's a very good thing.
I agree absolutely. And why whydo you think our founders put it,
you know, right up front inthe first Amendment. It's you know,
the second right that's listed in thewhole Bill of rights. Right,
Well, uh, you know,look, in general, they really thought
(11:58):
free speech was important. And Imentioned the reasons why we have free speech
in my opening remarks, and youknow, I think that those ideas that
I had really actually came right fromthe founders themselves, that they really thought
free speech was essential to self government. It was essential to citizens debating and
(12:22):
deliberating. Otherwise self government just doesn'twork, right because in a monarchy,
you're a subject. You're told whatto do, right, you're told what
to believe. And in a democracyyou have the right to choose, but
you have to deliberate. You haveto discuss and debate with your fellow citizens
(12:43):
so that you can figure out whatkind of laws you want to live under,
for example. But beyond the politicalspeech, you know, it's just
really important that they just thought itwas part of a free society, right
that just living interacting with your allof citizens, you know, the way
you know you operated a business,and your religious opinions, these are all
(13:05):
part and parcel every single day ofan exercise of that freedom to speak as
you choose. So it's political butit had that social dimension as well of
living in a free society. Youknow, we might understand that well by
looking at places that don't have thatkind of free speech today, maybe in
(13:26):
a place like North Korea, China, Iran, some other countries where people
don't have a lot of free speech, where the government regularly censors social media,
where censors opinions, where you canbe arrested for criticizing the government or
its leaders. I know Americans don'twant to live in that kind of society,
(13:50):
and I would bet a lot ofpeople in the society would like to
exercise more free speech as well.Yes, definitely. And you know what
you talk done as well is theywere our founders were creating something really innovative
when they created America, something thatthe world had not seen before. And
they wanted to make sure that wedidn't have a leader, like a king,
(14:11):
who would tell us what to sayand what you could wear, and
you know, what you could express, you know, so that was a
pretty important move. It was abig move away from having a king,
I think, right. It wasthe the ability to basically live your life
how you wanted to, and partof that was, you know, your
(14:35):
speech and your opinions, Like Isaid, economic opinions, political opinions,
religious opinions. You know, ThomasJefferson spoke eloquently many many times about you
know, how these opinions are justyou know, part of who you are,
and that was very important. Soyeah, you know, the founders
(15:00):
thought it was really critical to selfgovernance in America, one of the most
fundamental rights that supported all other rights, you know. But they did also
know that we were going to havedifferent opinions, right because of human nature.
We were going to look at thingsa little differently, whether it's this
political issue or that issue or soforth. We were going to have different
(15:24):
religious opinions. They knew that thatwas part of human nature, and they
knew that you couldn't change that withouttaking away people's freedom, or you know,
you couldn't force everyone to have thesame opinion. So part of the
living in a free society was thatyou were going to have to learn how
to deal how to accept the factthat people had different opinions than you,
(15:46):
right, And that's not always easy. But you know, an old quote
that I remember from my childhood wasthat you know, I may not agree
with you, but we can agreeto just to agree, but we have
to do so agreeably, right,we have to do so kindly, we
have to do so respectfully. Wealso used to say things like I may
(16:08):
not agree with you, but I'lldefend your right to say what you want.
And so I think those couple ofquotes are really good because they show
that, at least I know,when I was growing up, you know,
we really took free speech seriously,and we were also willing to listen
to other points of view, Soso important we're not listening to each other
(16:32):
anymore. And that's not only affectingour political system and how we do politics,
but it's also affecting how we relateto each other in civil society.
And if we want to be civiltowards each other, part of that civility
requires us to respect each other's freespeech and respect each other's opinions even when
(16:56):
we disagree absolutely. And that wasthat's another thing that our founders knew all
about, because, as we've mentionedon the show before, they didn't agree
on everything, and they got intosome pretty heated arguments when they were they
were creating our country or even decidingto become independent. You know, independence
wasn't even something they all agreed onin the beginning, but they had to
(17:18):
come together and share their opinions andhave conversations and debates and sometimes arguments even
and come up with what they thoughtwould be best for everyone. Absolutely,
there was a great deal of disagreementover whether we should declare independence. There
was a great deal of debate anddiscussion, deliberation over whether we should ratify
the Constitution. It was even agreat deal of debate in Congress whether we
(17:44):
needed a Bill of Rights in seventeeneighty nine and seventeen nineties. So you
know, all those debates were reallycentral to figuring out, you know,
and and creating establishing our republic conformof government. And those debates were vigorous,
(18:04):
they were strong, and people heldstrong points of view, and yet
in the end they learn to listen, they learn to compromise, they learn
to listen to the other side andmove forward collectively. Now, for those
who might not remember in a previousepisode, can you give us a reminder
what it means to have a republicanform of government, because that definitely goes
(18:26):
along with free speech as well.Right, well, a republic a republican
form of government is where you haverepresentatives, right, And so some people
call our government democracy or our representativedemocracy. Some call it a republic,
some call it a constitutional republic.It basically all means self government, right,
(18:47):
And in our system, we haverepresentatives in Congress and also in our
state legislators who represent us, right, and we give our consent for them
to represent us, and give ourconsent through through our free speech. Yes,
I was just going to say thatI think a vote is really an
exercise of free speech in itself.You know, I prefer this candidate to
(19:10):
that candidate. Yeah, I thinkthat's really important. Voting is the most
obvious and essential way. But aquick story, you know, I was
driving past the Williamsburg Courthouse in Williamsburg, right right near my house the other
day, and I saw about twentyor thirty people holding up signs, and
I thought, I wonder I lookedover kind I was trying to drive,
(19:30):
so I kept my eyes on theroad that I kind of looked over kind
I was on their signs, Andwhether I agree with it or not,
it was just really wonderful to seeAmerican citizens standing out there believing in some
cause and trying to persuade others thatyou should agree with them, and you
didn't have to, right, Butthey were exercising their free speech and right
(19:52):
to assemble peacefully, and I wasdragging by, and I was exercising my
right to maybe yell a few wordsof encouragement or to not say anything at
all. Right, we all andwe all went about our day. So,
m Yeah, I think that thatfree speech in action, right,
that practical free speech we enjoy everyday is really a wonderful thing. As
(20:15):
I said, in America, Yeah, and so many of us will you
know, either vote or decide whereto shop, or like you said,
you can drive by. You cangive them a thumbs up when you drive
by, or thumbs down, ornot say anything at all. And there
are so many little ways in ourlives that all of us, even kids
who can't vote yet or drive,and we exercise our free speech in so
(20:37):
many little ways every day that I'mnot sure that we notice it all the
time. And it seems like oneof those things that you notice more if
you start losing those freedoms exactly,right, Uh, And and you know
I think that, yeah, Ithink we do it every day. There's
so many examples, you know,but you know, when we leave our
(21:00):
view online or when we're talking toour friend or interacting with teachers and adults,
our parents, you know, wehave we have that ability to express
who we are and express our opinions, and sometimes our opinions are wrong,
and you know that's why we listento others too. And and so that
(21:22):
those kinds of daily interactions I thinkare really important sort of training ground,
if you will, as citizens everyday for for learning how to interact with
each other in a in a productiveway politically, but also in our society
and our civil society. So Lucywas saying one thing that she loves to
(21:45):
do, well, she gave usthree things, and really they were all
first Amendment. One was just beingwith her friends. One was being on
a sports team playing sports, andthose are certainly both freedom of assembly.
And then she loves to shop,and I was thinking, it's money.
How shopping is actually you know,a freedom of speech issue. Sometimes she
(22:06):
can decide where, you know,maybe she'll buy a T shirt with a
message on it that you know,some people love and some people don't,
or some people don't care at all. But she that's, you know,
something you want to say or acharacter on it that you like. And
like you said, in some countries, you know, even what you wear
is very limited. So having thatfreedom of expression to go shopping, it's
something that we don't always think about, but it's it's something special. Yeah,
(22:30):
there was an important Supreme Court casein the nineteen sixties about the Vietnam
War and some students were actually protestingthe war and they wore a black horn
band to protest the war. Andthey weren't disrupting class or that, you
know, they weren't doing anything wrongand they were just saying, I don't
agree with this war. Well,they were actually punished, but then the
(22:53):
Supreme Court reversed that punishment and saidthat no, the students right to this
speech. But they weren't even sayinganything, which is interesting, right,
so as symbolic speech, right inthe clothes they wore, the symbols they
wore, they were expressing some views. And really, you know, sometimes
when we get dressed, it's justan expression of who we are generally,
(23:15):
So maybe every day we're sort ofexpressing who we are, and maybe that's
sort of an artistic expression of whowe are, and that's a form of
free speech. It's a form ofsymbolic speech. So what are some of
the things that we can do,you know, in our in our everyday
lives, to support free speech andto be good ambassadors of free speech.
(23:38):
I love that question because I can'tstate enough how important it is in our
society and just as America kins ingeneral, to support other people's free speech.
Right, we want to assert ourown free speech, but to be
(23:59):
respectful, to listen, to nottry to shut down other people, or
maybe maybe maybe the young people listeningto her or the words cancel other people's
speech, right that. I thinkthat's very dangerous. And so the more
we can support each other and say, hey, hey, let's listen to
(24:19):
what he has to say. Wemay not agree with what this person is
saying, but let's listen. Let'sgive this person or her a fair chance
to speak their mind. The morewe do that every day, like you're
saying, the more we do itin our classrooms, the more we do
it at work, the more wedo it when we're having dinner with friends
and what have you. I thinkthe better off we're going to be,
(24:42):
because I think we're losing some ofthat, and that's troubling. To me,
Yes, me too. I agree. The founders put it right at
the top of the list in theBill of Rights for a reason, and
it's because it's so important. It'ssomething that we should treasure and appreciate and
protect for all the people yet tocome. I agree. I don't know
(25:12):
about you, but I love listeningto audiobooks, and when I pick out
a book, I always look forthe word unabridged, which means that nothing
is left out. Everything that thewriter wrote in the print edition is going
to be read out loud in theaudiobook edition. So when our founders wrote
that the freedom of speech would notbe abridged, it means that nothing will
(25:33):
be left out. As long asyou're not hurting someone else and infringing on
their rights, you can say anything. And that is a huge deal,
even though it might not seem likeit. That's because we're used to it.
So it's important to keep protecting thatright, even for people that we
disagree with, so that we canalways protect our freedom of speech. Thanks
so much for listening. Remember youcan find us at Growing patriots dot com
(25:56):
and on Instagram, Facebook, andTwitter at Growing Patriots. We'll see you
next time when we talk about freedomof the press, they create us solved
Jeremy Standing, and they fuck sowe would be America Land. This has
(26:22):
been a presentation of the FCB podcastNetwork, where real talk lifts. Visit
us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
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