Freedom of speech is a vital human right

Freedom of speech is an important right in America, found in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

If a question asks: “Freedom of speech is an absolute right for American. True or False”, the right answer is false. This argument had endured a long history in America and was ended by American Supreme Court in 1919, when the justices ruled that falsely “Shouting fire in a crowed theater” in order to cause panic was not to be protected by the First Amendment. Furthermore, the right of free speech is not protected for endangering others or obstructing another’s freedom of expression.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826, his presidency in 1801 – 1809) cherished the value of free speech so much because of Socrates’s (468 BC – 399 BC) death. He wrote to James Madison (1751 – 1836, his presidency in 1809 – 1817) that “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.” And the United States ratified the first ten Amendments, called the Bill of Rights, to the Constitution in 1791.

Jefferson was also the main author of the Declaration of Independence. He wrote the Declaration in 1776, saying that “all men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Madison was called the Father of the Constitution in America. In the Constitution, written in 1787, the writ of Habeas corpus (a Latin phrase means “that you have the body”) is also considered as the most important human right. All people, whether citizen or not, living in the United States are guaranteed their rights by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When one’s body is not owned by others, and one can pursues one’s own happiness, I don’t think that any body will let these great rights to be deprived of without a struggle.

When the first Sedition Act in America was passed in 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson worked with James Madison against this law. This is because under this law one could be jailed for making statements against the government or its members. The American people voted for Jefferson the next President in 1800. After President Jefferson inaugurated in 1801, he pardoned every convicted seditionist, and the Sedition Act was not renewed after its expiration date. Security and liberty, just like body and soul, live together. Linus van Pelt, a boy from the comic strip Peanuts, said “Security, like liberty, has to be won and re-won many times.”

No Chinese politician has taken the value of free speech like Jefferson did. Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) once said that “One has no right to speak before one has done the investigation and research.” I have no clues whether Mao respected Socrates or not; for Socrates asked his questions plainly to obtain information, and to the answers with still another question, so gradually the truth is revealed. This is called the Socrates method. Asking questions is one kind of speech. People should have a right to question their government without having done any investigation and research; government should respond people’s concerns. In America, it is clear who the people are. In the Preamble of the Constitution, there is a simple but striking phrase called “We the people”, which means that the government is “of the people, by the people, for the people” as Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865, and his presidency in 1861 -1865) addressed in Gettysburg.

John Locke (1632 – 1704), his philosophy dominated the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, once commented on “rebellion”, said “for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government; those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels.” This means the true rebel is the authority who, “acted contrary to their trust”, violates the people’s rights, therefore, people “should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected.”

In today’s China, people are still not entitled “to [be] against every government on earth” as Jefferson said, not even peacefully. One would be put into jail for trying to exercise the freedom of speech. When the Chinese government put conscientious people into jail for opposition to the government, even peacefully, it claimed China is a country with law and it was just enforcing that law. I cannot name one country in this world that is without law, or one Dynasty in China’s history that was without law. The question is not about a country with or without law, but for whom the law protects, whether citizens, government, or even one special party. Some Chinese seemed to support such prosecution, and retort: “What about the country’s interest?” To them, the country’s interest is separated from the people’s interest, and they regard putting that so-called country’s interest first as patriotic. There is a novel, Les Miserables, written by Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885), which revealed that reckless law enforcement for a defective law could not keep peace on earth eventually.