Free speech holds a great amount of value in the United States today, especially with all sorts of new technology, like computers and cell phones, but free speech is just one little part of the whole First Amendment.
Many people in the United States think that the First Amendment only contains the right to free speech, but it also includes the right to assemble peacefully, to practice a religion without persecution, and the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances".
Americans are always on the lookout for wrongs committed against freedom of speech, whether it be from a high school paper that was wrongly censored, to someone who has had their right to free speech taken away from them for no legitimate reason. But Americans need to realize that the other parts of the First Amendment are just as important.
The other rights in the First Amendment have just as much weight behind them as the right to free speech with significant backgrounds in history. The pilgrims and others like them left Europe because they were being persecuted for their religion, so they came to America, where they could practice their religion in peace. The Declaration of Independence is a petition to the English government for the wrongs committed against the American people.
The Founding Fathers understood the four rights contained in the First Amendment all had a certain importance to the Bill of Rights when they were writing it, so they chose those rights, not just freedom of speech, to comprise the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights for the citizens of the United States of America.
- Emily Baugh
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