America's first amendment had its roots in the torturous struggles in English history to acquire basic privileges and immunities for non-conformists and dissenting churches, for minorities and separatists -- either as individuals or congregates. America was thus a trail blazer in the realm of these basic rights for its people. Even today, few indeed are the countries that have the essential protections of freedom of conscience. Not even old Europe, by and large, have guarantees built in to their constitutions for the protection of religious freedom. Ireland is an exception.

Freedom of Speech
The Romans of old knew that telling truth to those not ready to hear it will not make you popular. In fact, telling unpopular truth quite often results in retribution being dished out to your hurt. Playing the whistleblower or prophet can make you a target for attack, for loss of position, for imprisonment, for execution even, in some times and places.

veritas odium paret. Truth engenders hatred.

The case of Whitney v. California was a landmark in the realm of free speech. It is perhaps best noted for Justice Louis Brandeis' concurrence, which many scholars have lauded as perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of speech ever written by a member of the high court. Justice Brandeis wrote:

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law--the argument of force in its worst form. See

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women.
[One thinks of Mother Shipton.]

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.

Consider the contrast between the histories of our country and that of Czarist Russia. The participation in World War I by Czarist Russia resulted in a rampant anti-war movement, which was suppressed with extreme harshness and brutality by the authoritarian regime. The aftermath of that repression was the Bolshevik Revolution. The United States, by contrast, has witnessed anti-war movements of some degree in virtually every war we have endured, and most have also seen some degree of authoritarian suppression of those movements by government. But nonetheless, the freedom to express dissent and opposition, the opportunity to, however clumsily, "tell truth to power" operated as a functional safety valve of sorts, a release valve for public discontent, and (in effect) as the ally, not the enemy, of public order.

Even supposedly "wrong" ideas can be helpful to us, if only in the provocation and stimulus they provide, as John Milton pointed out in his Areopagitica. Any dead fish can flow downstream. Opposition tests us. Challenges force us to flow upstream, to prove our liveliness, our fitness.

Indeed, sometimes, one's "enemies" can, in reality, turn out to be one's best friends. A doctor who gives you the "bad news" that you must reform your lifestyle, amend your ways, may seem like an enemy. But if the advice he gives turns out to save your life, what better friend could such an "enemy" be? Why did the ancients aver that whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth? We are told, quem enim diligit Dominus castigat flagellat autem omnem filium quem recipit. Isn't there a positive value in a coach who stimulates, or a parent who inspires? A challenge can goad us to aspire for more, or make us discontent with the stifling inertia of a status quo, or act as a catalyst for positive change.

This function of opposition is part of what Walter Lippmann referred to in his famous essay on how indispensable opposition is to a free society. "The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters." The Indispensable Opposition

Lord Acton, calling for changes in how the Catholic wielded Power, wrote:
Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. [John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton] See

Salmon Rushdie wrote: "Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence." See these reflections on the dangers of censorship. Free speech is the life's blood of a healthy society. If government and authority are necessary because citizens stumble at learning needed lessons, or balk at "governing themselves," information, freely disseminated to listening ears, is surely the way to lessen the need for authoritarian "solutions." In the long run, only self-government can save us. See Democracy in America, by Toqueville, in which he says that American democracy showed authoritarian Europe how the people themselves, could rule.

The danger of censorship lies in the ignorance it fosters. Authoritarian societies are proverbial for their fear of a literate and enlightened populace, yet that popular literacy is precisely what America, with its innovative origins in New England "middle class" democracy, has been all about. [See Democracy in America, by Tocqueville.] It may be human nature to plug our ears to inconvenient truth. Deborah Tannen has written that "the biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation -- or a relationship." Patience, politeness, and persistence are almost always helpful guidelines to communicating. Genuine communication is a two way street, which is why Tannen talks about trust-building, getting inside the other person's point of view.

But a socalled negative message need not be negative at all, though it seems like it, initially. A physician's unsettling advice, even when we need to heed it, is sometimes "too much information" for us to handle, at first. In the same vein, the press has a function akin to the 'Voice Crying in the Wilderness' (the prophetic role) that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of. Truly such a role, even when it provokes, is often needed.

Be vigilant. Progress attained is never guaranteed. Within the last century a respected Pope [Gregory XVI] decreed that it is "false and absurd or rather mad that we must secure and guarantee to each one liberty of conscience; this is one of the most contagious of errors .... To this is attached liberty of the press, the most dangerous liberty, an execrable liberty, which can never inspire sufficient horror." [quoted by James Carroll. Constantine's Sword. p441]

not arbitrary tyrants, bosses, and bullies

Dueprocess

rights and protections routinely provided

The pilgrims quoted his story. Franklin and Jefferson proposed he appear on the U.S. seal. Washington and Lincoln were called his incarnations. The Statue of Liberty and Superman were molded in his image. Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked him the night before he died. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama cited him as inspiration. For four hundred years, one figure inspired more Americans than any other.

His name is Moses.