Freedom of Speech is Dead

Guaranteed by law under the first ammendment, the Freedom of Speech is one of the most cherished values of the United States.
However, although it is protected legally, it is not honored individually.


Bullshit: Americans enjoy the freedom of speech more so than anyone else.
The truth: Actually, Americans don't enjoy the freedom of speech very much at all.

Before you think I'm nuts, think about the last meeting with friends you had (not in college). What did you talk about? The counter top? The wine? The food? The dog? The cat? The car? Anything but the world, news, politics etc. Anything but things that matter to us. So in many ways it's like you met them, said some stuff, but one thing stays the same: you leave without having learned anything.
But when with friends from other parts of the world, we'd talk about just about anything. We make fun of our own countries, talk about world events, about personal experiences and what they mean... so why is it that whenever I sit down with other Americans, this just simply halts and we're back to engaging in conversation that simply serves as a distractor?
Sometimes I'll start a topic like the ones I mentioned with a group of Americans to see what their reaction is and they immediately start getting very uncomfortable. They avoid it and try to switch the topic to something else. I'm sure if I pressed it further they'd try to avoid me altogether eventually.
So you see my friends, freedom of speech in America is actually also an illusion. Where millions of people sit at the lunch table or grab a smoke and talk about the world, disagree and still greet each other the next day with genuine smiles it seems to be an impossibility in the United States.

Why?

I guess there are many reasons.
One, I think at some point Americans have become too small inside and have developed very thin skin. Never at any point have they thought that if they can't explain their belief very well, that there is a possibility that they may be wrong.
Ultimately, I think the biggest culprit is the cable "news" services.


Selling Hate

They have rubbed our heads together like roosters in a... er... cock fight and we've gotten to the point where we are so angry at each other (since they make money off inciting hate) that we can't for a minute try to sit back and understand each other's views or even have the patience to see how the other party even see the world.
Free speech. Dead. Thanks to free speech of inciting hate and intolerance.

Children and Freedom

Before we begin, let's make a few things clear.
Children, by definition, do not really have responsibilities. This is why they have legal protection under a guardian and even in the event of committing crimes, they are tried with a different set of laws than adults.
Freedom is meaningless and dangerous without responsibility. If an organization feeds, clothes and houses you and decide what you will eat, wear and sleep in, you do not have any freedom but these three things will be guaranteed to you. To have freedom over these three matters means you are responsible for supplying yourself with the means to procure these.

Bleeding Heart Bullshit: Children should be given maximum freedom.
The Truth: Only if you want them to amount to nothing.

Let's face it, as kids the objective is to be as useful of a person as possible through the education system by the time you've reached 18 so that either you can land a decent job or go to college (and a good one if your scores are good enough).
But as kids, all we want to do is play. We have no sense of decency, courtesy, sacrifice... we are in essence very much like animals. But this is a subject for a bigger debate. In short, as children, we don't know what we need to know by 18 and it's certainly too far away for us to work for with the level of discipline and focus we have at such a young age.
As children we do not really have the means to achieve both this and make our own living at the same time. Therefore we cannot be responsible for our own well being and like stated above, without responsibility, you cannot have freedom.
Even as adults, most of us can't really pin down what freedom really is, but those of us who actually stop to think about the world we live in tend to have a general idea. So how are we supposed to give this sort of thing to children?

Our ways of giving freedom to children far too early is already showing signs of failure. In most countries not bullshitted to death by bleeding heart leftist propaganda, the kids are actually learning something.

This girl can kick your ass at math. Curfew? She may not even be allowed to decide who to get married to.

That's the ones that can actually afford to go to school and learn. But look at the problems facing our society.

If all else fails, there's always porn stardom.

Kids are getting "higher scores" because the standards are being dropped left and right. Children are under so much protection and have so much rights and freedoms that in some cases, they're telling the teachers what they want and what they'll do. Believe me, I did some teaching before and it's a disaster. I was able to square away my students and had them performing at levels unimaginable when I first got them but eventually a few quitters told their mothers, their mothers told the school and I got fired. The losers? The kids who wanted to learn.

You simply cannot give children freedom. They do not have the maturity (and experience) to handle the responsibilities required to have it. Having said that, neither do a lot of adults, but we do have to draw the line somewhere.
Parents have a responsibility for their childrens' future. That responsibility cannot fall on the child him or herself.