In America, we are privileged with the right to freedom of speech, ideology, and the right to assemble. But these freedoms are questioned when they cross into the grey area between the first amendment rights granted by the constitution, and speech that is clearly inciting hate and violence.
For instance there was a rally in Pomona on Saturday organized by the National Socialist Movement, an American Neo-Nazi movement protesting California’s passage of the DREAM Act. Many people would argue that this rally was to incite hate, but aren’t these people allowed the same right to assemble and voice their opinion as me and you?
This was the same issue in Skokie, Ill. in the late 1970s when the same political movement held a political rally in a town where many Holocaust survivors lived. The Supreme Court found that the National Socialist Movement’s symbol known as the swastika is a symbolic form of free speech and they had the right to hold their rally at Marquette Park.
Whether you like it or not, the freedom of speech, ideology and the right to assemble is a right that people in other countries would give anything for. The fact that we have immigrants coming from nations with oppressive governments shows that this right is something we all should fight to protect.
The government of Syria is trying to prevent their citizens from assembling to protest their anger with the government by blocking social media websites and enforcing curfews on their people.
The fact that the National Socialist Movement or any other movements like the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Tea Partiers are granted the right to freedom of speech and assembly from the first amendment of the Bill of Rights is something that we should not take for granted.
Some 250 years ago, our founding fathers saw that the freedom of speech and assembly was so integral to the foundation of this nation that they fought to include it when they amended the constitution to include the Bill of Rights.
The right to free speech and the freedom to assemble is granted to the people of the United States. Although your neighbor may not have the same beliefs as you, we are all entitled to our own opinion.
Students and organizations with beliefs that all of the disabled gay illegal Gypsy Jews should be annihilated from the face of the Earth are allowed to assemble in the Orange Coast College’s Free Speech Zone, as with organizations preaching ideals of peace, love and puppies.
Even though many people and organizations have ideals and beliefs that you may or may not agree with, we are all entitled to our own opinion.
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