By Paul Waldmiller
Did you know that one of the reasons our American Founding Fathers rebelled against King George (the King of England) was because of King George’s oppression of speech, specifically regarding the spoken and printed criticism of the Crown? In the time just before the American Revolution, colonists in America were at times imprisoned for anything the King or his representatives in America deemed inappropriate. Imprisonment for criticism for even the smallest criticism wasn’t unusual.
After the American Revolution, the American Government representatives in 1787 set about to establish an official constitution included with a bill of rights for every American. The Bill of Rights that we have today is the same that our Founding Father’s established which also includes amendments that speak to our Natural Rights and one of those Natural Rights is the guaranteed freedom of speech. We have the right to speak about, and to our Government representatives/employees regarding how we feel including, but limited too if their behavior, statements, wrongful actions, corruption, unlawfulness, and or any violations of public trust that they may be involved in.
Holding our Government representatives and or employees accountable through informing them of wrong-doing on their part is exactly what our Founding Fathers had in mind when writing the freedom of speech portion of our First Amendment included in the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers established “a Government, for, and by the People” which guarantees “We the People” a way to express free opinions of our Government without retaliation by agents or others employed in our Government.
Many nations outside of America claim to hold to being representatives of their people, but in reality, freedom of speech is rare and criticism of the Government will land you in jail. Only in the United States will you find the God-given Right of freedom of speech! This is, after all, just one of the ways our Founding Father’s gave We The People a way to hold our Government accountable.