Perspective: The wrongness of letting government tell us to ‘shut up—or else’

Perspective: The wrongness of letting government tell us to ‘shut up—or else’

Posted in:

By Gene Policinski, Freedom Forum Senior Fellow for the First Amendment

There may be no worse assault on our freedom of speech than a law that would permit the government to tell us to “shut up” when it comes to discussion and debate on a major social issue of our time – and to punish us if we don’t.

Freedom of speech under the First Amendment is rooted in the concept of a “marketplace of ideas,” wh…