Axar.az presents an article, “Free Speech And An F-Bomb” by John Samuel Tieman.

In 1977 or '78, I published for the first time in a student magazine. It was a poem about a woman, Alison, whom I met in Scotland. It wasn't much of a poem. But it was important to me. That and I used, as we today call it, the f-bomb.

I was a churlish young man, more interested in shocking an audience than the aesthetics of poetry. But that f-bomb taught me my first lesson in free speech. I could write and fear no government censorship. Readers could purchase that magazine and not fear arrest. It was my entry point into the meaning of free speech within this democratic republic. Crude as my entry point was, I learned that I could write without fear, and readers could read without fear. I could criticize even the president.

The First Amendment bars government retaliation. It also bars the government from forcing silence upon a person. You even have the right to be wrong, as when Pres. Trump falsely claimed that the Ukraine started the war with Russia. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ...”. There are, of course, limits. Libel, for example. Or the famous prohibition against shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But in the States, the freedom is so general as to seem both ubiquitous and uncontested. We take free speech for granted. Comedian Lenny Bruce lambasted Lyndon Johnson. Cartoonists exaggerated the shape of Richard Nixon's nose. Donald Trump will forever be our first orange president.

Unfortunately, it's an open question whether or not Donald Trump understands the First Amendment. At a press conference recently, the president complained that the press will “take a great story and make it bad … I think it’s really illegal.” No. It's illegal to use the federal government to suppress such a story. It's not illegal to write that story and publish it.

If free speech is suppressed, one of the greatest dangers, however, is not to writers and editors and such folks. One of the greatest dangers is to readers. To quote our first president, George Washington, if we eliminate the First Amendment, then “dumb and silent we may be led”. I have an idea that people who are critical of the First Amendment often forget that it's not just for artists and writers. The amendment also protects the right to receive information. In 1982, Justice William Brennan opined, in a library book censorship case entitled “Board of Education vs. Pico”, that the right to receive information flows naturally from the right to free expression.

I grew up in a two-newspaper family. We read the “St. Louis Globe-Democrat” in the morning, and the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch” in the evening. Why? My grandfather joked, “In the morning, we read what the Republicans want us to think. In the evening, we read what the Democrats want us to think.” Access to ideas isn't simply nice. In a democratic republic, the free flow of ideas is vital to a system predicated upon an informed electorate.

In a 2023 study, 40% of Americans would ban the amendment. More than 20% saw the news media as a threat to liberty. About a third didn’t realize the right to free speech protects books, movies, music, art and various forms of creativity. On the other hand, 60% wouldn't ban free speech, 80% see no threat to liberty, and two-thirds understand the protection applies widely to many forms of expression. My point being that, yes, there is some good news, and, no, it's not overwhelmingly hopeful.

Can the First Amendment long survive? One of the shocks of the Trump Administration is this. The Constitution is a vastly more delicate thing than most of us ever thought. Most thought it robust. Many thought it virtually impervious. But democratic republics live. And democratic republics die. Without free speech, they die in the dark amid whispers.

Here's a thought. In 1935, Leni Riefenstahl directed the Nazi propaganda film “Triumph Of The Will”. Praised by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Nazis everywhere, it is considered one of the most effective propaganda films ever made. By 1936 in Germany, it would have cost you your life to make “Triumph Of The Tyrant”.