Famous' Unofficial Tournament: R1

Here are mine. I. SafetyA. IntroductionB. How Misuse of Free Speech Can Endanger Individuals~Verbal AbuseC. How Misuse of Free Speech Can Endanger a CommunityII. General WelfareIII. Social GoodLet's get started! SafetyA. IntroductionTo clarify, here's the First Amendment:"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. " [1]The Supreme Court has ruled that there are two types of speech that aren't protected by the First Amendment, those being obscenities and "fighting words" or threats. [2]B. How Misuse of Free Speech Can Endanger Individuals~Verbal Abuse"Verbal abuse (also known as reviling or 'verbal bullying') is described as a negative defining statement told to the victim or about the victim, or by withholding any response, thereby defining the target as non-existent. " [3]In fact, there are at least fifteen different types of verbal abuse, which include the following:1. Withholding2. Countering3. Discounting4. Verbal abuse disguised as jokes5. Blocking and diverting6. Accusing and blaming7. Judging and criticizing8. Trivializing9. Undermining10. Threatening11. Name calling12. Forgetting13. Ordering14. Denial15. Abusive anger [4]But just how harmful can verbal abuse be? According to Harvard, it can be even worse than physical or sexual abuse in some cases. "The report suggests that, when verbal abuse is constant and severe, it creates a risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, the same type of psychological collapse experienced by combat troops in Iraq. The research on which the report is based points out that children who are the target of frequent verbal mistreatment exhibit higher rates of physical aggression, delinquency, and social problems than other children. " [5]On top of that, verbal abuse can cause depression, anxiety, PTSD, stress, intrusive memories, memory gap disorders, sleep or eating problems, hyper-vigilance and exaggerated startle responses, irritability, anger issues, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, self-mutilation, and assaultive behaviors. [6] This proves that misuse of freedom of speech can be quite dangerous. It can even cause unnecessary violence like this. Also, may I add, it's moral wrong to verbally abuse others. But how so? Well, think of it this way: it's like burning an ant under a magnifying glass; the ant didn't do anything inherently wrong, yet it's being fried underneath the magnifying glass simply to see the reaction of the ant and to see it slowly shrivel up and die. There's only one real difference, and that is that it's purely emotionally charged rather than physically like the ant example. C. How Misuse of Free Speech Can Endanger a CommunityAgain, like people can misuse their freedom of speech to commit verbal abuse towards individuals, they're able to do the same but to seriously harm a community of people, rather than just one. In fact, the increasing number of hate crimes have been tied to the hate speech. [7]In other words, hateful words can lead to individuals starting hate crimes against many people, hence, the harm against a community. "Bigotry has no place in a free society. It is fundamentally anti-freedom by nature, and its proliferation violates the basic freedoms of vulnerable minorities as recognized by the international community. Vulnerable minorities are much less free when bigotry is allowed to exist. " [8]General WelfareGeneral Welfare - The concern of the government for the health, peace, morality, and safety of its citizens. [9]Like I explained before, misuse of freedom of speech can result in the endangerment of certain individuals or even an entire community. Again, if you look at the definition above, you'll clearly see that this can't be seen as promotion of the general welfare. To emphasize my point even more, here's the Preamble of The Constitution:“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ” [10]In our very Constitution, the "supreme law of the land", [11] It states that we need to promote the general welfare (among other things) to create a more perfect union. In the same website that I pulled the Preamble from, I found a list of parts of Preamble dissected to understand the meaning even more. Here's the dissection of general welfare:"Promote the general welfare: This phrase meant that the well-being of the citizens would be taken care of as well as possible by the Federal government. " [10] With the possible misuse of this freedom of speech, is it really promoting the general welfare? Social GoodSocial Good - A good or service that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way. Some classic examples of social goods are clean air, clean water and literacy; in addition, many economic proponents include access to services such as healthcare in their definition of the social or "common good". [12]But the real question is this: how important are morals? "Consider what the world would be like if there were no traffic rules at all. Would people be able to travel by automobiles, buses and other vehicles on the roadways if there were no traffic regulations? The answer should be obvious to all rational members of the human species. Without basic rules, no matter how much some would like to avoid them or break them, there would be chaos. The fact that some people break the rules is quite clearly and obviously not sufficient to do away with the rules. The rules are needed for transportation to take place. "Why are moral rules needed? For example, why do humans need rules about keeping promises, telling the truth and private property? This answer should be fairly obvious. Without such rules people would not be able to live amongst other humans. People could not make plans, could not leave their belongings behind them wherever they went. We would not know who to trust and what to expect from others. Civilized, social life would not be possible. " [13]We as humans are built upon morals. Quite simply, if we rejected morals over freedom of speech, we'd be in anarchy. This relates back to the social good. Essentially, morals benefit everyone, as they show civility and proper behavior among all. In conclusion, the misuse of freedom of speech can harm individuals and communities and the use of morals promotes the general welfare and social good. Thank you. So long and goodnight! Citations[1]. https://www.law.cornell.edu...[2]https://www.google.com...[3]https://en.m.wikipedia.org...[4]https://www.psychologytoday.com...[5]http://news.harvard.edu...[6]http://www.healthyplace.com...[7]http://www.thedailybeast.com...[8]http://thoughtcatalog.com...[9]http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...[10]http://kids.laws.com...[11]https://www.law.cornell.edu...[12]http://www.investopedia.com...[13]http://www.qcc.cuny.edu...