Thanks to Emily for the sketch of me playing the Chessmaster to a stalemate recently. The following is a 750-word assignment on persuasive writing from my legal skills class, which my professor gave me permission to publish before handing it in.

 

Opinions, the cliché says, are like certain smelly body parts: every human being has one. The vitality of a free society depends upon the expression and acknowledgment of these thoughts, no matter how heinous. But when questioned about what we think about our government’s course, how often do we respond, "I don’t know"?

Whether this is a polite lie to avoid confrontation, or we genuinely have no thoughts, our mental vacancy endangers free speech, and presents a gathering threat to the experiment known as the Constitution of the United States of America.

Scholars often interpret the free speech provision of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights - "Congress shall make no laws ... abridging the freedom of speech" - as a protection. I disagree. The linguistic construction assumes people practice free speech regularly, and it frames that activity as a sacred duty, albeit couched in a double negative. Rewritten as a positive, the First Amendment might say: "Americans shall create open communication." A scholarly interpretation might explain that self-governance depends upon conversation between citizens, so they must contribute the marketplace of ideas to forge a thriving democratic republic.

When Americans remain quiet, our culture absorbs the absence of liberated convictions. Power abhors a vacuum like that created by the half of the American populace that elects not to vote; thus, the mental environmental of body politic becomes vulnerable to manipulation by malevolent actors.

For example, in autumn 2006, I managed the election campaign for the first African-American gubernatorial candidate in Connecticut history. Relying on our First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, I organized a signature drive that won Green Party representative Cliff Thornton ballot access.

Yet those malevolent actors thwarted Mr. Thornton's views from reaching the largest forum of ideas - the televised debates. By monopolizing that primetime discourse, the other candidates violated Mr. Thornton's right to speak, and our right to listen and form an impression. Civil society denied its responsibility to speak, thus the affront to liberty stood.

My staunch advocacy for Mr. Thornton's rights inspired some and offended others. Certain officials who took offense to my verbosity determined I was a threat, and placed me on an "enemies" list that colored my pacifism with the hue of violent intent. Two months after the election, while photographing the winning candidate at a public celebration, I was singled out, arrested, and detained because I earlier suggested protesting the event.

Aside from about 13 hours in jail, my outspoken desire to see nations and communities solve problems through vigorous, healthy conversation has exacted financial and emotional tolls on my family and me. Yet this sacrifice pales when compared to those who paid for enfranchisement with the currency of their lives. I am thankful that my imprisonment was relatively short, that I did not disappear into an extralegal gulag of torture and indefinite detention.

For our government to approve storytellers, to pre-empt protest, or to prohibit narratives is to push our house to a precipice where those malevolent actors – our own fearful souls – foreswear self-expression. If we confuse dissent with danger, if we allow those who serve and protect to destroy, we define the eighteenth century maxim: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

The exercise of speech is difficult. It demands the fortitude to admit being wrong, the discipline to learn, the courage to compromise, and the confidence to articulate. I am elated when people rise to my defense: students, unionists, athletes, waiters, chiropractors, grandmothers. But to thousands more who know of my plight, or the deeper agony of those suffering in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, and for various reasons, choose tacit acceptance, I ask: what are you waiting for?

History shows us that challenging inequity during moral exigency is an imperative. After surviving a concentration camp, Martin Niemoller taught us that because he did not defy early Nazi atrocities, no one remained to defend him from Hitler's goons. Dante explained that the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of crisis.

The Founding Fathers likely understood this, thus the First Amendment obliges vibrant dialogue. This dispute over my arrest supersedes me. The question is whether our free society will grant law enforcement agencies the power to silence unpopular opinions, to prosecute body parts for merely being stinky. If we opt against answering this conundrum, then as Martin Luther King Jr. said, our silence is betrayal. The moment to speak is now.