aldemar barona @alde_333 - Twitter Profile

John Kerry began his rise to political prominence after returning from service in Vietnam and becoming an outspoken critic of the war. He routinely exercised his First Amendment rights when he openly criticized our government’s foreign policy at the time. Last Wednesday, during a panel at the World Economic Forum, John Kerry called the First Amendment a “major block” to combating misinformation. First, the government doesn’t grant you the right to speak your mind. This is every human being’s divine right. The Constitution simply enshrined this divine right into law. There is an obvious push to move the Overton window on the topic of free speech. I pray that we are intelligent enough to resist. I hope that we are strong enough to pass on to our children the same, if not more, civil liberties than we had. I am shocked and appalled at what I hear coming from the mouths of our political and business leaders on this issue. We should be figuring out how to extend our rights, freedoms, and values into an evermore digital world. Not using digitization to turn back the clock. If this is too complicated a task for the older analog generation of leaders then they need to step aside and let a generation of internet natives take their place. If the government wants trust back from the American people, the way to get there isn’t by silencing dissent and restricting freedoms. If the institutions who have abused the trust of the American people want that trust back, they should do it the old-fashioned way. Earn it.