Eight Values of Free Expression Blog Post #3

  Free Expression

One of the Eight Values of Free Expression that feels the most important is promoting tolerance. With freedom of speech promoting tolerance allows an extension of hate speech. If people got thrown in jail for saying something hateful, it would be a dangerous amount of power given to the government. When a person says something hateful society can deal with handing out punishment such as taking away an athletes contract. Being able to talk about politicians in a negative way is also important because it allows people to criticize the government without being punished.  This is protected by our First Amendment right. If we punished everyone for hate speech then we would be like China or Russia. 

Atlanta Hawks Owner Exposed For Racist Emails

In 2014 the owner of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team was forced to sell his team because one night he sent racist tweets. This is an example of promoting tolerance as he got punished by the NBA rather than having to deal with the government. With free expression his words on the email were protected. Society was able to deal with this issue as his contract was cancelled after the emails got exposed to the public. Sending racist emails is beyond stupid but especially for a basketball team owner that works with all races. If this problem didn't occur he would be making hundreds of millions. He however apologized and is embarrassed as he said, "I’m truly embarrassed by my words in that e-mail, and I apologize to the members of the Hawks family and all of our fans." A harmful statement that he said is that the white fans are more valuable than the black fans. If I was a player for the Hawks I wouldn't want to play for him.                                                          

                                                                                                                    Promoting Innovation

Promoting Innovation connects to me the most as I value a community that freedom speech is looked up upon. The government silencing people can be a powerful action that is not supposed to be used in the United States. We wouldn't be a free country without a community that values the freedom of speech. Promoting freedom of speech also promotes the ability to give diverse options. Ninety Five percent of people can agree with a topic and the Freedom of Speech allows the other five percent to disagree. I couldn't image living in a country where its illegal to share my opinions. A time that the United Stated government countered the promotion of innovation is during 2020 when Covid was at its peak. The government started silencing scientists when we needed the help of scientists the most. I have seen a lot of conspiracy theory's on why maybe the government wanted to silence the scientists. The one that made the most sense to me is that the government was trying to test its boundaries. There has been so many times that people have gotten punished by the government for using their first amendment right and I am highly against that. Promoting innovation definitely connects to me the most.

The Supreme Court Blog Post #2

Video 1

After two hundred years of the Supreme Court being around, Americans respect and accept the authority that the court holds.  It's outstanding that words in the constitution from hundreds of years ago still guide us till this day. An interesting fact that I learned is that even some siting in jail can create a petition and it will still be look at the same as a citizen that's out of jail. It doesn't matter what position you hold when it comes to having your petition reviewed. With the amount of petitions that the supreme court gets and   close to every single one gets looked at, its amazing that the Supreme Court is able to review them. 

The most important take away I got from the videos is that one of the most important powers that the Supreme Court holds is judicial review. Judicial review allows the court to examine laws and invalidate them if needed. The famous case Marbury v. Madison in 1803 established this principle. 

Before watching the videos and reading the History channel article, I thought that the surprise court was flawed. There are certain aspects like the supreme court having a lack of diversity and at times there can be a lack of accountability. What I mean by this lack of accountability is that justice serves lifetime appointments, which means that they are not directly accountable to electorate. This often leads to hard decisions that are unpopular to the publics values without having any type of consequences. 

 Video 2

After watching the videos I can understand why the Supreme Court is forced to make decisions that might not be popular. There are a ton of laws and other attributes to take into consideration that the public just doesn't pay attention to. The videos didn't really say anything about the lack of diversity in the Supreme Court but its a fact that the court has a history of lacking diversity.

Ranking my Top Five Sources of News and Information

Number Five: BCC News

In a world where this is a ton of fake news, BCC News stands apart from the fake news sources. A huge strength about BCC News that sticks out to me is its global reach. Having a global reach is important as it allows diverse perspectives. These diverse perspectives allow BCC News to ensure legitimacy. In addition, historically they have established a very strong track record. An aspect of the BCC News website that I like the most is that the menu at the top of their website is split into countries and popular new. This allows their audience to find news easily.

Number Four: TikTok   

As funny as having TikTok on this list sounds, its a source that I have used for a ton of news and information. There might be a good mount of fake information on TikTok but on the videos that are fake the comment section usually will inform the viewer that the video is fake. There are countless accounts made strictly for giving watchers information and more of them then less are known for legit information. What I like about TikTok is that its an entertaining way to gain information and you can gain information

 passively. What I mean by that is most young adults currently use TikTok and as they watch videos they will stumble upon informational videos just by scrolling. I would recommend TikTok to young adults that love to use social media. Not only can't you watch entertain short videos but you can also watch informational videos. TikTok is so versatile and has millions of videos. I have seen a good amount of inappropriate Tiktoks so I wouldn't recommend it to younger people. It is a social media app so its as approbate as you make it.

                                                                                                    Number Three: TED   

Ted Talks are a great place to get inspiration and information. It might not be the best place to find information quickly as the videos are often long but if you are willing to sit through the whole video, you can definitely get a lot of important information. Another reason that I like TED Talks are because the information that is given within these speeches can be easier to remember as the speakers are often people that viewers look up to. I would recommend this source to anyone as its very versatile. These videos are long as I stated so this source will be good for a person with a good amount of free time. If you would rather gain information from a speaker rather than reading an article, TED Talk is for you. There are a lot of speakers that talk about news.

Number Two: Wikipedia 

A lot of people have mixed feeling about Wikipedia as anyone can edit the content. They do have a system to remove false information and when I have used Wikipedia in the paste I can confidently say that I have never ran into fake information on this website. I would recommend this source to anyone. I remember using this website in middle school and I know adults that use it. The search bar system is deftly a plus that allows the user to find the information that they want. Teachers usually don't like it when you use it as a citation. So if you are using this source for a school project, just use it for gaining information and not to pull quotes. This source may not be a news website but you can defiantly find articles that connect to todays news.

  Number One: New York Times 

When ever most people think of the news they think of the New York Times. The New York Times is a well-respected source for news. Equipped with well trusted Journalists, New York Times is very successful at giving readers important information. What I like most is that their website looks like a newspaper and it's easy to navigate. They also have games on their website which not a lot of people know about. The best one in my onion are the crossword puzzles which you would see on a normal news paper. I would recommend the New York Times to anyone that's older that 15. Some of the articles can be intense for a younger person. If you are looking for a classic newspaper feel the New York Times if for you.