General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Everything reported is strictly legal, just as Hitler’s extermination of the Jews was legal" [View all]GiaGiovanni
(1,247 posts)And it's not just you. Lots of Americans believe the First Amendment is kind of a carte blanche for any kind of speech, even threats or fraud, and that simply isn't true.
The ironic thing is that what freedom of speech is really intended for- the right to protest your government- is the one thing that is steadily being eroded. If you protest a government policy, you can get carted off to jail, even if you are non-violent. If you want to protest a presidential candidate, you can only have your say in a "free speech zone" far from the center of the action. If you wear the wrong T-shirt to a Presidential speech, as Cindy Sheehan did, you can be arrested. The First Amendment actually requires that you should be able to directly express your verbal opposition to a government policy without being frisked and jailed.
While these real rights are being eroded, Americans' conception of the First Amendment is becoming so diluted that some even believe that it supports corporate fraud. That's a cause for concern.