America, land of the free. America, a country based in many ways on the freedom of press, and the freedom of speech. But what would happen to this great country, tis of thee, if these precious rights had ceased to exist? America, the land of liberty and home of the brave, would hold a great stock of uninformed and uneducated community, ready to rise up to anarchy at any moment; a crowd of undiverse and ununified people; and a population of souls unwilling to create because of the ever looming presence of big brother.
Without the first amendment, America would be uneducated and uninformed. It is customary for most people to wake up every morning to their daily paper. But, in a society without freedom of the press, people would wake up to an altered paper giving only half of the real story. The common everyday magazine would carry a distorted view on all the issues it covers, and the 6 oÆclock news would have a show tailored to specifications given by the government. In schools across the country, children would learn only what the government would allow them to. All of these factors combined would create a society that wouldnÆt know if they could really trust their government. In a situation like this, AmericaÆs government could decide not to even allow the press to know that they were going to invade Iraq. The government would also have such a tight hold on all of the people, that they could persuade the nation in any direction they want without any one having a clue of what is really going on. This can cause confusion amongst a people, resulting in an uprising, such as the terrible incident in Tienamenh Square.
Because America acknowledges the freedom of press and speech, our nation has become very diverse in itÆs culture. Diversity in a society is important to create unity amongst groups of people. If a country restricts diversity, the populace will produce ginger bread men out of the same cookie cutter, generation after generation. This will usually slow down the productivity in a nation unless standards are kept very high in the industry, and the people have a strong desire to compete with the rest of the world. A good example of a driven country would be Japan. But because so much energy is spent training the young people into robots, JapanÆs diversity is strongly lacking. Our nation would be exactly the same if we didnÆt have the freedom of speech and press, because the nationÆs mindset would be focused on becoming part of the god in the machine instead of discovering and creating new cultures. Without the first amendment we would stand as the United States of industry, and the crumbs of diversity.
Life is sustained, created, and spread throughout by means of creativity, ingenuity, and love. If our civil rights were barred from our community, the forefathers of America probably would have never entered an age of invention; everybody, inventive or not, would be too afraid of receiving opposition from the government for creating something new and different. This in turn would keep important inventions and writings from being created. Take, for example, our average 18th century Joe Shmoe. Joe has just created a great new way to cure influenza by inoculating the patient with the serum of a donkey. Joe has a problem though; he needs to get his idea out to other doctors to make sure this vaccination really works. Joe decides to go to the medical journal printing office and have his vaccination printed for all of AmericaÆs scientists to see. The line stops here though, for the government has to approve everything that goes through this particular paper. The government decides that his idea is too radical and weird for the journal, so it is torn up and thrown into the trash; a great idea forgotten forever. Joe decides that his career is ruined so he takes up farming for the rest of his life. It just so happens that a bad strain of the flu comes swinging along that winter, and 500 people are killed by it. This could have been prevented, but because of the narrow-mindedness of the government, JoeÆs vaccine never even got a chance to save one person. It is in this and other ways that freedom of speech and press can help provide us with the life sustaining energy that we need to survive.
America is a remarkable country held up by the pillars of freedom of speech and press. And although some gray areas, such as censorship, still remain to be challenged, we can safely say that none of this is greatly effecting our freedoms which we hold so dearly. Hopefully America will always remain the home of the brave, and the land of the free.
