By sharing our opinions and exercising our freedom of speech we, as Americans, are fostering democratic values. Democracies value certain principles which include free speech, representation and individualism. I do not believe, however, that sharing your opinion means pushing or forcing your opinion on others. I believe that by forcing your opinion or arguing your opinion, violates the democratic values of equality and individualism. Alexis de Tocqueville states in Democracy in America,“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use that freedom.”The Bill of Rights also gives the people the right to petition the government and if we don't give ourselves a voice, especially at times of controversy, …show more content…
When it comes laws having to do with hate speech, the U.S. is in a bit of a gray area. On one hand, there are laws against slander, fighting words and incitement; on the other hand, simply having a social media profile that offends people does not qualify as any of these things. Is the Westboro Baptist Church fostering democratic values by expressing its controversial world views? (quote)I think that the Westboro Baptist Church is exercising it right to free speech by using social media to talk about its own opinions and beliefs, I don’t believe that the subsequent violence sometimes associated with the Westboro Baptist Church and its cause its at all, in any way democratic. Democracies have never encouraged people to push their beliefs on others. More often now, we see examples of this in religion. Radical groups who believe that all Muslims are with ISIS will go as far as to seriously injure or even kill people who do foster the same beliefs as them. We tend to see the Ku Klux Klan as a thing of the past because in school we are taught after the 1960s the unrest ended, but even today there are reports of violence towards people of color by the KKK and similar