Post 3: Freedom of Expression

The State of American Democracy

What is the People's Responsibility?

 As an American, I feel extremely strongly about our freedoms and maintaining those freedoms from the government’s control. Our founding fathers vision for this nation was entirely wrapped around the value of free expression and therefore, the founding fathers protected our right to that. 

The eight values of free expression are vital to the health of American society. Unfortunately, I feel like our society is losing the importance of those values of free expression due to the hostile tendencies of some. I feel that our society has amplified extreme points of view and it has then, whether intentionally or not, created a large divide among the two biggest political parties in America. It seems like a Republican and a Democrat cannot have a civil conversation or come to a mutual understanding since it is seen as “betraying” their political party. I see people who care more about defending everything their political party says and stands for rather than being able to come to a reasonable understanding with each other.

The eight values of free expression are marketplace of Ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, checking in on governmental power, promoting tolerance, promoting innovation, and protecting dissent. All of these values are extremely important when it comes to practicing good and fair democracy and they are pillars of true American society. 

Free speech is America’s most important trait and its value is immeasurable. Our entire government is founded on the principle of giving power to the people, not the government. By practicing free expression via the values stated above, it keeps a power balance between the people and the government. When the people stop practicing those values, the power dynamic can become imbalanced which is when we see divide in America and it seems like the government has an unproportional amount of power. 

One of the values that I see as extremely important is the promotion of tolerance. Tolerance is one of those values that is absolutely necessary

for a civil American society. When we see a decrease of tolerance, which is currently happening, it's the people that suffer, not the government. When families or communities are in turmoil since civil discourse isn’t being practiced, it's us who suffer and the government actually has the opportunity to gain more power. Individual politicians can prey on this divide in communities to create further division and therefore, gain a bigger fan base. 

No matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, it's always beneficial to listen to your fellow Americans and have a healthy level of skepticism when listening to politicians. If we blindly trust our political leaders, to the point where we attack fellow Americans, we are not far away from the fall of America. 

Polarization is another  consequence of the effects of not valuing free expression and Americans seeing each other as the enemy in protecting politicians. Currently, Democrats and Republicans are being pinned against each other, with the extremist opinions of each side being amplified rather than the moderate opinions, which actually make up the majority. Although most Americans fall somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum, social media boosts the extremist opinions posted since those posts get more “clicks”. 

Americans need to find the value of free expression of self and utilize every single day. Our political climate alters when we disvalue this protection of expression, and it's not in our favor. Not only do politicians gain more power when we ‘lose’ our voice, but our connection to our fellow Americans weakens, which is equally as dangerous from American democracy. It is not enough to just use our voice to state our opinions on the political climate; it is of the utmost importance and extremely necessary for us to amplify other opinions as well. Before politics, we are people; we are Americans.