First Amendment



First Amendment

First amendment right of freedom of speech has come to prevail through its impact on a society that is failing day by day. Suicide is prevalent in the society, youth crimes remain unacceptably high, and homicide ranks as the second major reason for deaths among individuals aged 15 to 24. Teenage pregnancies are high while the use of tobacco and alcohol at unacceptable rates among the teenagers is also rising. The society is failing its duty for the future generations. One of the main reasons behind this failure results on account of the society's restricted ability to influence children along a positive path due to the limitations of the first amendment.

The first amendment off course contains the most important laws that assign freedom to the Americans. What causes the main controversy is that, though the importance of this amendment is apparent to the adults, but for the children, it is very far from being obvious. The benefits that this amendment may provide to children would off course be seriously restricted by their developmental stage. Instead of concluding equality in the rights of adults and children, it should have viewed the possibility of granting rights to children in accordance to their capacities (Saunders, 2003).

Free expression incurs its own costs. Limitations on adult do exist, but they are confined. Adult speech is only limited when some serious danger of its consequence arises, such as if it carries obscene words, slander or words of fight. Only under these categories is adult speech limited. When a child who is still going through a psychological development is the receiver of such speech, then the costs of unrestrained speech borne by the child may prove to be excessive. Adults by avoiding their urge to use slanderous speech in front of the children may help in shielding children who are in their developmental stages. This also helps in protecting the society as any negative effects of free expression are borne not only by the children, but by the society as a whole (Saunders, 2003).

First amendment by its inability to function differently for adults and children has dwelt in a much uncalled for situation in the society. Communication between the adults should be allowed to be healthy, even more than what the current laws specify. When it comes to children, the amendment must be somewhat weaker. The material which is accessible to children must be severely limited and monitored. Though there are legal constitutional barriers in place now prohibiting the distribution of sexually explicit materials to children, yet these laws should be expanded to cover a broader range of restrictions. They need to be applied to rude or disrespectful materials, materials that incite violence and hate music, which all tend to give rise to a new generation of violence infected individuals. There is no justification to grant a right to a child for access to such material, and therefore, the rights enjoyed by adults with regards to access of such materials should not be considered ...