Speech Theories

In this age, it seems that people can get offended by pretty much anything said against them. People can be offended if someone says something against their race, religion, sexual orientation, social class, or childhood. This has inspired the movement for making everything "politically correct," otherwise known as rewording everything to make it as inoffensive as possible. This movement has made speech much more difficult to use, especially because people will immediately call you out if you say anything that is not politically correct. This concept of correctness is the primary reason why Promoting Tolerance is the most important speech theory of the eight.

As Lee Bollinger says in The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech: a tolerant society is a better society. If people can tolerate speech made against them and take a minute to listen and form their own conclusions instead of lashing out at the speaker, society will be more receptive to criticism and more introspective on their own character. Friendships are formed based on common interests and common dislikes, so when someone inevitably disagrees with an opinion that one holds dear to them, they assume that they are in the right and the opposing opinion is immediately in the wrong. Ethical and political questions that have divided the United States are all opinions, such as the arguments of gun control, abortion, and marijuana. People should definitely be entitled to their opinions, but not to the point where people outright ostracize or attack people who have differing opinions than them.

It makes sense for hate speech to be protected by the First Amendment, as people have to understand that they are in the wrong not because of their opinions, but because of their actions towards people they disagree with. If I meet someone who hates Trump and I like Trump, we would have a discussion about it and agree to disagree. Additionally, if someone openly slanders Trump and roasts him on a comedy show - which is how Stephen Colbert gets his paycheck - people should understand that he can say that without punishment. It is Colbert expressing his opinion through comedy for a specific audience, and if you don't like it, turn it off. Hate speech, though people do not like to hear it, makes sense to be protected due to its ability for people to hear other's opinions and views. Therefore, tolerance should be promoted in the First Amendment for people to learn how to accept opinions and have civilized discussions about important topics in society.

Evolution of E-Sports

The Evolution of E-sports

The concept of competition has existed as long as humanity knew how to do anything well. There would always be someone who felt like they could do it better. People wanted to build houses taller, be the strongest ruler, or simply be the fastest runner. However, competition has evolved greatly beyond just feats of physical ability or competitions of status and recognition. In today's ever-changing world, a new competition has risen to mainstream popularity and, in some countries, overshadow traditional sports. This new phenomenon is e-sports, or electronic sports.

Simply put, e-sports is competitive video gaming. There are many video games that are made for competitive online play, so various companies have embraced the idea of creating teams of the best players and competing for a prize pool of money. Video games have always encouraged competition with the only difference being that the competition itself is on a screen instead of a field. The first people to take advantage of this was Major League Gaming, or MLG, which was founded in 2002.  MLG saw the local tournaments that were happening over the United States and decided to bring it to a national audience, broadcasting the first televised video gaming tournament in the United States. The game on broadcast was Halo 2, a competitive first-person shooter genre game developed by Bungie where two teams would compete to complete a similar objective, such as capture the flag or king of the hill. The game was made for online competitive play, so it was easy to suppose that people could get good enough to play competitively for prize money, and it took MLG to broadcast it on a nationwide scale. Once people realized that this was a good idea, investors and innovators created teams such as OpTic Gaming, Cloud9, and FaZe Clan, all of which are still very well established professional e-sports teams with a variety of games represented by their players.

Pictured: League of Legends Worlds arena.

At first, e-sports was met with confusion and laughter. Many people criticized people who became professional e-sports players, laughing at their choice to play video games for a living and claiming that it was a waste of time. In e-sports' early years, there was reason to think so, as there was not a lot of interest in the scene in its early stages. However, with releases of new games since Halo 2 such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Rocket League, e-sports have new competitive games with a variety of genres for every video game fan. E-sports have also gained a massive audience, with the 2018 League of Legends World Championship gaining a peak of 200 million viewers worldwide, surpassing that of the Super Bowl. E-sports is adapting fast, and it cannot be ignored or laughed away any more. People make millions of dollars from tournaments, such as Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf, who won 3 million dollars from the Fortnite World Cup this year. It is a growing industry with people who can make sustainable income and win massive prize money, hosting an audience who is invested in the games, and will be a major staple of worldwide culture for years to come.



https://esportsbetting.ninja/esports-wiki/esports-history-major-league-gaming-mlg-organization/

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_League_of_Legends_World_Championship

COM Tech Timeline

Technology Over Time

Over the past 27 years, hundreds of millions of people have used the World Wide Web. It has become very easy to do a variety of menial tasks online using the Web, such as shopping for clothes, ordering food, or applying for jobs. The fact that doing these tasks now takes only a few clicks of a button is astounding as well as convenient and amazing. None of these tasks that were once viewed as complicated and are now simple could be done online without the invention of the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee during his time at CERN Laboratories in Switzerland. He noticed that the methods of sharing information between different departments were very complex and often not used, as it was easier to talk about it over their coffee break. To combat this, he presented "Information Management: A Proposal" for the program that would become the Web. It was rejected at first in 1989, but eventually his boss gave him permission to work on it in the summer of 1990. Berners-Lee wrote three programs that would remain staples in the World Wide Web: HTML, HTTP, and URL: the three languages that allowed people to search on the Web to find a specific address for information. This technology proved to be very useful, and in April of 1993 the World Wide Web was released to the public with no charge to use its services.


Pictured: Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Sir Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, to develop open web standards for the world. The community has proposed five concepts of the Web that are used globally: Decentralization, Non-Discrimination, Bottom-up Design, Universality, and Consensus. These five concepts are key to the World Wide Web, as it allows its users to use the Web however they want as long as they respect what is put on the web. The concept of a free World Wide Web is something that should be maintained, and Sir Lee has been campaigning for this ever since he opened it to the public. The Web should remain public and accessible, or communication and the right to free speech would be impaired greatly.

Sources: 
The Web Foundation
A Brief History

Communication

Methods of communication have advanced greatly over the last couple hundred years. Even over the past 100 years technology and communication has exponentially advanced and become much easier. We have come from waiting months for a letter to make it across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris to sending a text message in mere seconds asking "wanna get dinner 2nite?" Methods of communication that send messages in seconds are extremely useful for a variety of reasons, such as creating plans with friends, contacting loved ones across the world, or sharing photos of your experiences.

However, this convenience comes with a cost. The quick nature of communication has created a shortened attention span in the population, as people are expecting an instantaneous response to a text message or a missed call. People are so easily connected to their friends across the world that it seems that connecting with our friends from across the table has become difficult. The world is simultaneously connected and disconnected, as one would rather send a text to a friend in California and FaceTime them for hours than meet up with your friend in your dorm to study for your next exam.

In short, people need to find a balance between physical, face-to-face contact and long range, electronic contact. If it is easier to send a text to meet up for dinner, go ahead and do that, and once you meet up with your friend, talk to them instead of sending texts to your other friends. Nowadays, people have become so used to text messages that it is now an odd action to talk on the phone, which is in fact what the cell phone's primary use is. By looking down at our phones we are missing the people behind the text messages. The movie "Ready Player One" showed this problem very well, as people would rather live in the fictional world than the real one since they are someone else that they don't want to be in the fictional world. However, the real world is all we have, so we have to live in it and talk to the people who also live in it in order to get the most out of life.

Source Used:

The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era

Americans can exercise their right to free speech in any form as long as it is within the confines given by the government. If there is any infraction of free speech or incorrect use of the right, the government can legally enforce a subsequent punishment. This is much more freeing than other countries that completely restrict some speech and media, where they enforce Prior Restraint.

Several people have taken full advantage of the government ordained free speech in various websites and forums, where people with opinions or points they want to share can state their opinion, agree with others who have similar views, or argue certain points if there is a disagreement. This practice is completely legal, as the United States allows opinions about the government to be shared publicly with no backlash unless opinions and words turn into anti-government actions. The day I wrote this post, a retired Air Force colonel replied to this post and talked about withdrawing troops from Iran and Saudi Arabia on the website antiwar.com, arguing that withdrawing troops was not premature or reckless. This was published so recently that there were no replies or comments posted. Every day people use their freedom of speech to express their opinion, even if nobody else has seen it yet, and I believe that is valuable.



Pictured: American troops in Saudi Arabia.

People even get to talk about the President and his orders, policies, and other actions in both positive and negative ways without facing any government punishment. A blogger on The American Conservative stated in one of his blogs regarding the relationship between Rudy Giuliani and President Donald Trump, "Trump may be an idiot, but he is not stupid..." In other, stricter countries, calling their leader an "idiot" could land you some serious consequences. Countries under dictatorships or heavily enforced monarchies ensure that their citizens always agree with their leaders, no matter what they do or decide to do with their country. The value of free speech is incredibly overlooked, since some people would be thrown in jail or worse if they said even half of the things they say about our President. Websites like antiwar.com and The American Conservative would not exist if the United States had the same laws of countries like Turkmenistan or North Korea, which controls the press in its entirety.

Sources:

antiwar.com

The American Conservative

Civil War and Reconstruction

Almost every state in the US is suspicious of the power that Google wields over the American population, and they certainly have the right to think so. Google controls a lot more than just the top results when you search "how to change a tire." They also control the advertisements that pop up when you search for something as well as several websites and technology that you use daily, such as YouTube, DoubleClick, a Chromebook, or an Android smartphone. It seems that the Internet itself is Google, and one is certainly inclined to think so due to the amount of power Google holds over the Internet.

Many congressmen and congresswomen have chimed in on the situation of Google's supposed monopoly over the internet and advertising to increase their platform. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt noted that it was like buying a house, but Google owned the house, several houses on the same block, and was also the buyer's agent and the seller's agent. They controlled everything in the purchase, like it or not. Another attorney general, Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, stated "when my daughter is sick and I search online for advice form doctors, I want the best ones, not the ones who spent the most on advertising." This emphasizes the fact that Google has total control over what results are shown when a search is made, giving the top result spots for the companies that paid Google the most money.

The Attorney Generals want to see Google's power lessened or more evenly distributed among other areas instead of monopolizing the internet, but unfortunately this will prove to be a difficult task. If a state government or the federal government were to issue a rule or law against Google and its many services, it would be a violation of the 14th Amendment, specifically the Privileges and Immunities Clause. The government cannot restrict a person's rights or access to the privileges granted to American citizens, and the Internet can classify as a privilege. Though it may be inconvenient that Google owns a major portion of the Internet and the tech and services that accompany it, the government cannot change that directly, as it is made of a corporate body and qualifies as a person.

However, the Attorney Generals in the 48 states investigating Google are taking a better approach to the situation and are launching antitrust investigations in an attempt to discover if Google broke any laws getting to where they are now. This process is entirely legal, but if they find something incriminating against Google, the government cannot restrict them in any way that violates the 14th Amendment. It is a tricky balance, but one that is certainly doable.

Source: CBS News

The Founding Era

Week 3: The Founding Era

After watching the history of the Supreme Court, I definitely walked away with more knowledge about how the Court operates than I initially knew. Americans often get educated about how the Congress operates and what the duties of the President are, but the Supreme Court and its duties often get overlooked.

The Supreme Court gets several thousand petitions per year, and it is up to the Justices to determine which ones require full consideration. After a decision is settled on a case, the justices write an opinion, which will reveal to the American people what the justices decided upon. This is the most important job of the Justices, as this will reveal exactly what the thought processes were among the nine Justices as well as the conclusion of a very important case.

I personally liked the idea that the Justices have implemented in their discussions, and that is to make sure that everyone talks first before anyone talks twice. This ensures that every opinion is heard and no voice is silenced in the matter. With nine unique persons on the table it can be easy to overlook one or two people's opinions, but the Supreme Court makes sure that it never happens. Additionally, I liked Justice O'Connor's response to the question "Is there an implicit affirmation of the result of the case if a case is dropped?". It affirms that the Court does everything in their power to make sure every case gets the proper amount of consideration when it is presented to them.

I particularly liked the line that was said at the conclusion: "The power of the court is the power of trust earned, the trust of the American people." The more I think about this line, the more I realize that it is very true. The American people trust the President to lead the country the best they can by affirming laws and creating executive orders when necessary. They trust that Congress will listen to their suggestions and create laws based on what the general population desires. However, it is up to the Supreme Court to declare how a certain issue is to be addressed, and these issues may be very relevant to the general population, sometimes more so than laws or orders.

Though I do not fully understand law nor do I desire to go into the field of law, I do understand how important a single case can be for a number of people. Lives change from cases in simple domestic courts and cases in criminal courts, so the power that the Supreme Court wields is much greater than the average American suspects. With that being said, I fully respect the authority that the Supreme Court holds and I will make an attempt to read up on some of these opinions that the Justices release.

Source:

History of the Supreme Court