The Eight Values of Free Expression.

     Free expression is a very important right in our world today. With the politics in place today many people feel their opinions, rights, and feelings are being suppressed. There are many situations in our society that do not support people's rights and liberties. Reading about the eight values of free expression made me understand what our rights and obligations entail in a better way. They are very interesting to me because they are explained so well. 

    In today's society, there is a lot of suppression being forced upon many groups of people from all over the political spectrum. I personally support almost everyone's form of self-expression as long as they are not bringing harm to another person or suppressing another person. We as people do not have the right to tell other people to lock their feelings away if we do not agree with them. The only case this would be allowed is if they are physically harming another person. We cannot justify violence as self-expression but many people want to limit expression in the form of words. This was shown very well in the cases of the Black Lives Matter protests. There were so many cases of peaceful and meaningful protests that kept everyone safe, showed motivated and emotional people wanting to make a difference. The peaceful protests were a great example of personal self-expression. Many people were upset about these protests but they are not able to legally do anything because people have the right to peaceful assembly. 

    The problem with some of these protests was when they took a dangerous turn. Some of the protests turned away from their peaceful intentions and became violent causing destruction of property and physical harm to people. This is a form of expression that cannot be allowed. It is when people try to use violence to spread their ideals and message that they have to be stopped not when they are going about it peacefully.

    The eight values of self-expression are a marketplace of ideas. This means we should be open to hearing other opinions and ideas besides our own. People today should open up to ideas that they do not agree with, it doesn't mean they have to live by these ideas they are just open to letting people live their own lives, not the lives society has deemed appropriate. One of my favorite values is participation in self-government. I really agree with the fact that everyday people need to be actively keeping the government in check. 

    There are many people who do not think of the government as being run by the people. The only way a government is effective and just is when it is held accountable by the people they are supposed to be helping. We see many cases of the government being too controlling or not following the will of the people. The vaccine and mask mandates are signs of abuse of power by the government. The government should not be allowed to make blanket medical decisions for an entire country and that is exactly what they are trying to do. The American people have more influence than they think.