Antiwar Voices Are Not Allowed to be Heard (Blog #9)

 

Freedom of speech is something that all United States Citizens have as it falls under the First Amendment and it is expected to be obeyed every day unless the speech is felt to be incitement, a threat, defamation, or insurrection. Although everyone is allowed to have their opinions with this free speech, a group of people that seem to be punished for free speech they have as citizens are people who believe in antiwar. Honestly, I do not blame this group of people for staying silent about their opinions most of the time because many events occurring in the past and just recently have made people feel isolated with their expression; all of my personal opinions aside. 

If we backtrack all the way back to the Progressive Era, many people were antiwar since World War I was currently in action during this era. From 1914 to 1918 many groups of people flooded the streets expressing their opinions on why the United States should not be at war and how they strongly believed they should just end it right then and there. Even though all these protesters were using their free speech which is protected by The First Amendment, hundreds of people were thrown in jail for voicing their opinions on what they thought was best for the country. Protesting is protected under free speech but in their circumstances, it was like the amendment was no longer implemented.

If we fast-forward to 1989, there was an extremely massive Supreme Court case at the time. A man from Texas named Gregory Lee Johnson is known to be an American Political Activist for his action of burning an American flag outside of a convention center in Texas, as he was trying to voice how he felt about President Ronald Regan being in office in 1984. This sparked controversy because many people believed that this could fall under the First Amendment while others believed that it was a stab in the back to America. After many years of an extremely tough court case, it was finalized that burning an American Flag is seen as an expressive action and voice that was now protected under the First Amendment. It is interesting to see that burning a flag is protected yet people who were expressing free speech about how they observed the war were throwing people in jail.  

Recently reported, there have been many college students at Yale and New York University who are part of antiwar groups who have been arrested for voicing how they feel about the current wars that are taking place around the world. When you see this in the news as someone who believes in antiwar it doesn't make you want to voice your opinions, so I truly do not blame antiwar believers to keep hush most of the time. Free speech is something that everyone has no matter what opinions they believe in, but the United States likes to hide these voiced opinions of antiwar supporters and their solution is to bring people to jail to lessen these voices being brought to the public eye. They want people to believe in the United States' decisions and not believing in the war makes it seem you do not support the country you live in. As Americans, we encourage people to believe in our country and what our country is currently doing when taking action. Are all these antiwar protests that are happening around America with people thinking they have so much power over everybody the "right thing to do" to people and the "right way" to voice their opinion on war? Absolutely not. Do these people have a right to do so? According to the First Amendment, Yes.

Citizens need to be able to trust that the amendments that our country emphasizes we have when comes to our freedom, and that starts with not caring how our country is perceived elsewhere in the world but with the government letting people voice what they believe in if it's causing no harm even if they do not agree with what these antiwar groups have to say. Personal opinions need to stay aside, even though it can be hard in a matter like this when you see the free speech they are given going too far. Think about it if it were reversed, would you want to be thrown in jail for voicing your opinion of pro-war? People would easily argue the fact that it is going against your freedom of speech, but when it goes back to antiwar people they aren't allowed to argue that.  The whole point of politics is to hear the other side and the government and mainstream media disallow this to happen, all because they want our country to be seen as perfect by others in the world.