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Imagine a nation without intellectual freedom. It would be very… boring. We wouldn’t have a wide range of information on current and past events. We wouldn’t be as knowledgeable today. Intellectual Freedom, if you don’t know, is human rights. For example, listening to what music you want to hear, seeing the movies you want to see, and reading on what you want to read. I think that people may be able to do all of this, but also express, but not enforce, their opinions. It’s not right to say to someone, “No, no, no you can’t read this because I don’t like it.” That would be enforcing your opinion, but instead say, “I really don’t like that book, but I’m not stopping you from reading this. Without this right, there would be barely and books, songs, movies, and TV shows. This is a necessary right that we all have, but enforcing our opinions is not part of this right. Remember with great power, comes great responsibility.

Is having the right to speak how you feel, do what you feel as long as it doesn’t break any laws. This is something you would learn in history like the first amendment, having the right of speech, and to say what you feel. And the Constitution says that it’s our decision what we decide to do. If you feel that something’s wrong you have the right to stand up what you believe in, and it will be okay as long as you follow the laws we have in our country. It’s like protesting, there could be something going on in your city that you make not like that much you as an American citizen can stand up and say what you feel. Everyone has this right, whether you’re a different race, age, or have a different background. For example If something in your school was changed like rule saying “you can’t wear black sweatshirts to school” because what so ever reason, if that bothered you, you could have your friends and anyone else in your school sign a petition saying that we should be allowed to wear them.

I think Intellectual freedom is a good thing because we all need our own rights and intellectual freedom lets us have that. In the reading that was passed out it talks about how we should have the rights to read what we want, “watch what we want”, and hear all different points of view. I think that it’s unrealistic and rude to take a book away just because there is something in it that you don’t agree with, because chances are there is someone else out there loves it. Same goes for watching T.V. would if someone tried to kick your favorite show of the air, wouldn’t that make you mad? So why on earth would you try to kick something off that someone else loves. If you don’t like it you don’t have to watch it. And with sharing different points of view, just like you’re able to show and tell your beliefs your neighbor should be able to say what they believe. Intellectual freedom is necessary for everyone to live how they desire and as long as that’s not harmful to others I think that that’s a pretty good thing.

Intellectual freedom, what is it? In my words, it is you having the right to say what you what and do what you do without breaking any laws. You may know this as the first amendment. The intellectual freedom consists of the freedom of speech, giving the right to protest for what you feel is right. It also consists of the freedom of the press, which is getting to post blogs or write in newspapers and magazines about what you feel. This may come in when you want something to happen, like you want to change a school rule, something in your community or even bigger, in the government. You can take something’s to far, like, if you have your opinion about one of the people running for president and they get voted. If you have a bad comment about them, keep it to yourself. In my opinion that is wrong, you should never bad mouth the president. That is intellectual freedom.

Look, the First Amendment has its limits. Examples: no shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, no racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc. comments. But some of take the First Amendment, and the whole dang Bill of Rights for that matter, for granted. Anyone remember John Adams and his Alien and Sedition Act (1799)? Andrew Jackson actually breaking checks-and-balances into a million pieces by sending Supreme Court-protected Natives into “Indian Territory” anyway? Anti-WW1 protesters jailed? Japanese-Americans tossed into concentration camps like Jews in Nazi Germany? Remember those events? Or Cold-War America installing puppet governments, blocking elections, and supporting DICTATORS just to keep another belief system out?
Basically, the Bill of Rights is seriously overrated. It’s lovely to have them, but our rights are useless if our government does not realize that we have them. And this “intellectual freedom” follows the same rule.
And the rule is this: Everyone has rights, but they are only good if our superiors recognize and uphold those rights.