Free Speech Is an American Birthright

The importance of protecting free speech should go without saying.

Since James Madison drafted the First Amendment in 1789 and states ratified it two years later, millions of Americans have fought and died to defend this sacred, unalienable right.

That is part of what made the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk so disturbing. He died exercising it. Kirk’s murder, the controversy surrounding media reaction, and other eruptions of violence – including the attack on an ICE field office in Dallas – create a watershed moment to step back and remind ourselves: free speech belongs to the people, not to politicians, bureaucrats, or tech billionaires.

The First Amendment, which states in part that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” must always be respected and observed. Yet today, elites in Washington, the mainstream media, and Silicon Valley are all too eager to decide which voices get heard and which ones get silenced. Disagreement is not hate speech. Criticism is not violence. In America, you don’t get shut down simply because the ruling class disagrees with you.

Our forefathers could not have foreseen that one day, on social media platforms, America’s enemies would deploy bot farms to infiltrate our discourse and divide us from within. But what they did foresee is that free speech is the ultimate check on power – foreign and domestic.

More than ever, we must stand firm in rejecting violence or censorship as tools to control speech. Free speech is not granted by government; it is a God-given right. And the people will always have the final say.

The stakes to the great American experiment could not be higher. As Benjamin Franklin warned: “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

That cannot, and will not, be allowed.