Free Speech: An Eternal Struggle

“While Americans and other Westerners may be living in a golden age of free speech, there are still billions of people in the world who have yet to enjoy its blessings.”

We live in a golden age of free speech. Baruch Spinoza, Frederick Douglass, and other historical free speech champions would marvel if they were alive today. Across the planet, thanks to social media and other new communication technologies, millions of people can organize, discuss, debate, and share their thoughts and writings openly in real-time with no looming Inquisition, Star Chamber, or Committee of Public Safety. No one in Europe gets persecuted or burned at the stake over Catholic-Protestant doctrinal disputes.

In the United States, no government censor can stop the publication of media content—print or digital—through the use of prior restraint. African Americans descended from slaves are now active, influential citizens participating in all walks of life in the world’s most powerful liberal democracy. Even among other liberal democracies, the United States stands out as “exceptional” in protecting free speech and free expression thanks to a robust interpretation of the First Amendment.

Present constitutional case law protecting free speech and free expression is stronger than at any other point in American history. First Amendment litigator Ken White writes:

“For more than a generation, the United States Supreme Court has reliably protected unpopular speech from government sanction. The Court’s staunch defense of the First Amendment is remarkable because it has transcended political partisanship and upheld speech that offends everyone, including the powerful.