Eight Values of Free Expression

 

What are the Eight Values of Free Expression?

More Specifically, How Does Stable Change Relate to Today's Society? 


The eight values of free expression are extremely important in society and play a huge role in citizens' everyday life. Whether we may know it or not, these values are something that we carry with us every single day and is apart of our freedom as an American citizen. The eight values of free expression are Market Place of Ideas, Participation in Self Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation, and lastly Protect Dissent. Each one of these values resonate in today's society, and especially Stable Change. This value of free expression is also known as safety value and is something that Americans use daily. 


Stable change is the idea that people should be able to freely speak their mind and vent about issues in their society, and how they feel about them. Angry citizens should have the ability to express why they are feeling this type of way and what they specifically want to happen.  If people could come out and speak against the government, then less crime would happen. Well, that was what was expected with this stable change theory, however, recently we as a country have been seeing things happen differently. For example, peaceful protests that originally are for people to show how they feel in a correct manner, have been turned into rioting and looting due to the behavior of these people. Citizens of the United States are using this stable change theory in their favor and crave the idea of speaking out against things they disagree with. The government believes that people who strongly disagree with certain rules and laws should speak out because it honestly can help point out specific hate groups in the country. If groups of people are freely speaking out against issues but turn it into violence, then the government will know who is a potential threat to the people. All in all, it is meant to help citizens with the freedom to speak out, but is mainly helping the government in pin-pointing where the problems are or who they are. 


Diving into different acts of stable change throughout society, let's look at one that has been extremely recent within this year and see if it has been affective to the United States. The Black Lives Matter organization is one of the most popular groups in the United States especially after the death of George Floyd. Citizens all of the country wanted to publicly speak out on what has happened and demand justice for police brutality. This notion of using their freedom of speech and enforcing this stable change theory to others seems like it would be a beneficial thing to happen to the U.S. However, weeks after protesting started, riots and looting have begun which creates violent and hate crime. This link shows how the peaceful protesting and people using their voice to explain the issue is turning into riots and smashing windows of different properties. The stable change theory issues that people have the right to speak up if they are angry at a situation, but is not condemning rioting and looting which is what the country has given in to. 




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