What Ever Happened to the Freedom of Speech?

Article author:

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Article date:

2 November 2023

Article category:

Our American Future

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Article Body:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.

- First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

... When James Madison was crafting the First Amendment, he insisted that the word "the" precede "freedom of speech" in order to manifest the Framers' belief that the freedom of speech preexisted the government. The First Amendment is a negative right. It doesn't grant the freedom of speech. It negates Congress from abridging it...

... A right is an indefeasible personal claim against the whole world... It belongs to every human by virtue of our existence...

Privileges - like voting in a government election or driving an automobile on a government roadway - come from the government. Rights come from our humanity...

If you accept the existence of the natural law - a body of unchanging moral principles universally knowable by the exercise of reason - you accept that natural rights are ours to exercise whether the government is expressly prohibited from interfering with them or not...

Yet, today, the government thinks very little of the freedom of speech, even though all in government... have sworn allegiance to the Constitution....

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