The Eight Values of Free Expression

The Eight Values of Free Expression- 

The Eight Values of Free Expression is a big part of how and why America is the way it is today, without these values we the American citizens wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that we love doing. Such as being a part of elections, speaking our mind when the government upsets us or being able to express ourselves the way we want too. All of those examples I just listed happen because of the Eight Values of Free Expression. Since a lot of people don’t really think about the Eight values of Free Expression before, I’m going to use real life examples for each one. So you can clearly understand why these eight things are a big deal in our everyday lives. 

Marketplace Ideas- 

John Milton's concept of the Marketplace Idea was a big thing back in the day when he was arguing against the requirement of having a license to be able to print and publish; he believed that readers can benefit from reading morally incorrect books along with correct books so they can see the difference between good and evil. In today’s world something similar is happening but in this case it is with the DC attorney general and Amazon, in May DC attorney general Karl Racine sued Amazon because of the relationships between the first party sellers. Racine believes that it is untrustworthy and uses the first party relationship to stop the completion between amazon and other companies.  

Participation in Self Government- 

In this last election things got pretty heated with both parties the entire time, each candidate had very different views on how they wanted to run the country so it was important to make sure that the citizens participated in the debates to make sure they knew who they were voting for. Presidential elections can be pretty complicated because you are not sure what each party is telling you is true or not. For example in this past presidential debate had approximately 73 million viewers, Fox news being the most watched news channel at that time. Averaging with about 16 million with each news station broadcasting the debate. 

Stable Change- 

Stable change talks about letting the angry citizens speak their mind so it doesn’t result to violence. There have been authorities studying more dangerous groups who act better when the government lets them speak their mind. I’m from Des Moines, Iowa and our governor Kim Reynolds recently passed this law that lets past criminals or anyone with a felony vote. She believes that giving them that second chance will help benefit thoses who are effective the most. Which I thought relates to stable change because she is helping those who made mistakes so they can express their feelings peaceful instead of ending in violence. 

Individual Self Fulfilment- 

Self Fulfillment is a pretty big expression that everyone gets to use on a daily basis, whether that be picking out what clothes to wear, what you want to eat for lunch or who you want to be. That all goes hand and hand with self fulfilment, we Americans are pretty lucky cause we get a lot of freedom of who we want to be. Some countries aren’t as fortunate as we are, such as Afghanistan . A big thing in the news right now is the US withdrew Troops which led the Taliban to take over Afghanistan, which is a bad thing for women because they barely get any freedom now. They don’t have the luxury we do to get to express ourselves or be able to be who they want to be, which makes Americans very lucky to be able to get to do that. 

 

Check on Government Power- 

Unfortunately we have had to deal with some of our presidents abusing their power of being president,it hasn’t happened very often but we still see it from time to time. Some of them just get carried away and do things that take things way too far. So we the people need to make sure that our leaders are doing what they say they would do and not taking advantage of us, since we don’t have the power they do. For example in 1974 37th President Richard Nixton was involved in the "Watergate" Scandal where his party broke into the Democratic Party room months before the election. That might not have happened if he wasn’t already president but since he was he took advantage of this power and did something that wasn’t supposed to be done.  

Promote Tolerance- 

The first amendment is really argued in this expression because we can only use freedom of speech to an extent there are some things that just aren’t meant to be said. Which causes issues since there are some citizens that take freedom of speech too far then they get in trouble and try to use the first amendment to back them up. A more recent case of this happening was in 1989 where the government came up with a law that says you will be punished if you destroy, burn or do any harm to any US flag. This is freedom of speech to an extent because they are now causing harm and violence is involved.  

Promote Innovation- 

Promoting Innovation brings out the good in the first amendment by letting people be creative and express themselves for the good in a positive manner. It allows you to come up with new ideas to promote in the workspace or something great that could benefit people all around. This expression can help make the world a better place and more exciting and interesting environment to live in, no matter where you are. I don’t know about everyone else but I like to have some creativity in my life that makes it more exciting which is exactly what this expression does. 

Protect Dissent- 

It is extremely hard to get the entire United States of America to agree on the same thing. In fact it is impossible, because everyone is different. Everyone grows up differently, comes from different financial situations, and lives totally different lifes. So for everyone to agree on the same government isn’t going to be possible, one side is always going to be upset. With the protection of dissent it gives each side the right to criticize the government and the things they don’t like about each side. It is a good thing actually because voicing our opinion shows that we care about the country and what is going on in it. Such as right now many Americans aren’t agreeing on some of the things Joe Biden is doing and they are criticizing the choices he is making.