The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era is one of the most known turn-of-the-century political movement interested in furthering social and political reform. The movement was started after WWI, when the The Birth of a Nation was released. The movie was causing riots and fist fights, which caused Ohio to ban the movie.

The filmmakers ended up suing the state of Ohio, saying it violated their First Amendment rights. The filmmakers were saying it was a prior restraint, which is when the government stops you from speaking or writing before you've even done it. 

The court wanted to side with Ohio, but for that to happen they had to prove that the movie was not protected by the First Amendment. They decided that the movie was purely action and not speech, therefore the film was not to be protected by the First Amendment. This being said, had solidified our first great dichotomy, which is call the Speech Action Dichotomy.

There are a lot of situations in society where we see this happening, people voices being silenced for speaking their minds about the government. Websites like Antiwar.com and The American Conservative are websites that you wouldn't see everyday that you research information on different news stories. Do you ever wonder why that is?

Although the government can not silence these specific voices, they can control what other voices are more of a first option, available to the public more than the voices they wish to be silenced. I believe that all types of opinions should be a first choice or second choice offered, because different types of news bring different ways of things to view topics and if you are blocking people from getting the full story from different views then their opinion might be biased. 

Knowing this information, I will look for different viewpoints on different topics before creating an opinion because I like to have all the pieces of the story before judging and questioning peoples decisions. Now as much as I want to have all the pieces there also could be a negative viewpoint of this law. There are some pieces of new that people are not happy with that they decide to revolt and do a protest. know a protest is an okay thing to do unless it is an unpeaceful protest then law enforcement is obligated to step in to protect peoples property and lives. 

I really liked looking into this era because it made me realize that I did not always have the full story or the full truth was been hidden from me. It also made me think that if the government wants something to go in their favor they have the power to try and change it, but why don't we?