You’ve Heard of Freedom of Speech, Now Meet the Freedom of Vote

Do you like freedom? Here’s how you can get more of it.

I figured I’d make it easy to know what this article is about. (source)

You love Freedom of Speech.

Or, at least, I think you do.

If you’re reading my writing, you’re reading the thoughts of a college student who doesn’t always speak kindly of his government. So even if you personally don’t like Freedom of Speech, you are supporting the work of someone who does. Ha. Gotcha. You’ll never escape the grasp of freedom.

But you probably do like freedom. It’s fun. It’s good. It’s American.

If I were to tell you that your Freedom is being compromised by your government’s inaction, you would, like any patriotic American, drop what you are doing, grab your musket, and commence Revolutionary War 3.0 (Version 2.0 failed and had too much racism). Well, my friends, I am here to tell you your freedom has been compromised. Prepare your powder, both wig and musket, for we are off to battle.

Oh wait, I should probably explain exactly what we are going to war about.

Freedom of Political Speech

Perhaps no Constitutional Freedom is more cited — properly and improperly — than the freedom to speak one’s mind. And rightly so. Freedom of Speech — especially of political speech — is protected because, without it, our populace’s ability to civilly shift our nation’s ideological tack is hampered.

Court rulings in favor of Free Political Speech have extended to what some even consider a fault, with rulings such as Citizens United vs. The FEC in which the Supreme Court considered massive donations to candidates to be ‘speech.’

Suffice it to say, ‘speech,’ is, from the Court’s perspective, not constrained to utterances emanating from human flesh. It is defined broadly. A sloganed banner is Free Speech. Silence is speech. Art is speech. A naked Jesus in a jar of human urine is speech (long story).

Freedom of Speech is obviously not constrained in respect to the complexity or subtlety with which a statement is made. That would be ridiculous. The First Amendment protects our prose whether it manifests as a mantra or a manifesto. In fact, our Framers’ intent was for us to use our speech to debate vigorously and at length, exploring nuance and complexity of each issue in the hopes of reaching a final resting point that, while not necessarily matching that of our opponents, is nonetheless more closely aligned with our own values and the factual realities of the world. Key words here are ‘nuance’ and ‘complexity’.

Statements such as “I like healthcare” or “I hate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency” are certainly valuable and worth expressing, but as far as furthering discussion, they leave something to be desired. If our Government were to impose a restriction not on the opinions we express, but on the nuance accompanying them, we would certainly be a country of confused compatriots.

At the risk of stating the obvious, here’s how nuance adds value to a communication.

In polite — or impolite — conversation, you can undeniably learn more about your fellow interlocutor by asking them to rank their favorite movies in order of preference, rather than simply naming their top #1. And if you are Amazon.com or IMDB.com, a ranged star rating system gives you more valuable feedback than a simple thumbs up/thumbs down system might. Nuance helps. We see it every day. When the option to provide nuance is given to a customer, their potential to express themselves and interact more deeply with the world grows.

Simple, right? Right. Glad you’re with me.

Let’s go a step further.