Freedom of Speech; Not so Free

Freedom of Speech; Not so Free
The first amendment has allowed Americans to believe in a sense of freedom that is not exactly there; Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has never been free. I once read a passage by a man named Stanley Fish and he claims “The version of crying wolf is crying first amendment”, In the sense that, as Americans, we are lead to believe we can say what we want but the truth is we are limited. We suffer consequences left and right because we are unable to intentionally cause emotional distress upon others or be obscene in public. Society suffers plenty from the first amendment right, we all should be able to express our opinion in a respectful matter and not suffer any consequences.
Having to scream out first amendment rights after saying something someone questioning you on, is unnecessary, it is possible though in today’s day and age it may get you out of a hole. We all have grown up believing we could say whatever we would like, then the reality check came in once we said “shut up” at school and received demerits; that’s when we began to ponder what exactly is freedom of speech then. Truth is, we can say almost anything we would like, as long as we do not incorporate harmful or offending commentary in our speech. We cannot call this freedom of speech though; it should be rephrased to sheltered freedom of speech.
The First Amendment is an important idea and a good principle when it is being utilized in the way it is described and not tossed around with different exceptions here and there. It is hard to make any restrictions at all on speech due to the First Amendment being so broad. As a result of it being so extensive, boundaries are set and made without the deliberation of political groups. Freedom of speech is vital but it must have limitations like all other freedoms. These must be acted upon in the context of conflicts with other rights. If people have a right to life, then yelling “fire” in a crowed would violate their rights, this could not be fair to others and that is why there are exceptions, however, not all are reasonable.
The silencing and the government censorship process are an incompatible combination. In any efforts the government might make to shelter people young and old from bad ideas. We are deprived of the right to makeup our own minds and form opinions. We act with fear when writing and talking because we are in fear of being criticized, censored or punished for our work. It is unbelievable to me that a group of people can decide what is reasonable for a whole nation, especially when they can hardly handle their own problems. Since we begin to fear these things we begin to self censorship. Self censorship is when we bite our tongue or cut the sentence short before we go to far and touch on issues that raise eyebrows like sexual preference, race and religion.
In America we are known to live such free lives, however limitations are set on every form of freedom we have. Just like for every action there is a reaction and for every cause there is an effect. When we utter to much from our mouths we suffer the consequences. Things that are free do not come with consequences so there for freedom should not be anywhere near the word freedom of speech. Freedom of speech needs to either be redefined or made to be what it has been created to be.