Rights and Freedom - Essay Example

The Bill of Rights guarantees the privacy of citizens and grants them the right to a fair judicial trial process. There are two procedures of amending the US constitution is not fair since it entails a lot of lobbying and scrutiny all the States and houses of the legislature. Rights and freedom Introduction The First Amendment of the US constitution prohibits the Congress from making any law that may prohibit the right and freedom of worship, the right and freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of petition, the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.

The First Amendment is an important aspect of US constitution since protestors could be silenced by the federal government and press could not criticize the government without fear of reprisal. In addition, the citizens could have been constrained in petitioning the government in agitation of social change through peaceful assembly. Without the First Amendment, religious minority groups could be prosecuted since the government could have the powers to establish a state religion. Personally, I believe that the freedom of speech is the most important freedom that is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US constitution.

The freedom of speech includes both words and symbolic speech that is safeguarded by the 1st Amendment. The freedom of speech is a freedom of expression that allows citizens to express themselves without any government interference. The US Supreme Court requires the government to make substantive explanation and justification in all attempts that aim at regulating the contents of the speech. Although the freedom of speech is guaranteed, this excludes any speech that is aimed at causing violence or propagating illegal activities.

I have realized that the level of protection that the speech will attract will depend on the forum in which the speech takes place. Some types of speeches are either unprotected or less protected and include commercial speech, advocacy of illegal activities, fighting words, and obscenity. In the case of Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S 414, 108S. Ct. 1886, the Supreme court clarified that political speech entails any interactive communication that concerns political change while Buckley V. Valeo, 424 U.

S 1, 96 1976, asserted that circulating petitions, placards, making speeches and orations was a safeguarded political speech. Speeches that incite illegal activities are prohibited if they aim at directly inciting or producing lawless action. However, the government can not punish anti-war protestors who oppose the government actions through speech. Fighting words such as derogatory messages receive lower protection while obscenity and pornographic speech is controlled by the government. The First Amendment also safeguards some symbolic expressions which are likely to be understood by the audience unless the symbolic expression is against societal interests.

Advertising speech is also safeguarded than fighting words due to consumers’ need of market information. However, political speech is granted the utmost protection by the constitution. The Bill of Rights and subsequent notable amendments to U.S constitution democracy are of significant importance. The Bill of Rights consists of first 10 amendments of US constitutions and safeguards the freedom of religion, and freedom of expres