Freedom of speech affects my life daily, but mostly in bad ways. Do not get me wrong, I am a highly opinionated person who likes to share these opinions, so yes that freedom helps here. Yet I hear the freedom of speech being abused multiple times a day. If it were not for the freedom of speech, we would not be where we are today with having talk shows, advice columns, books, and many important items that are used daily. Unfortunately in my life, I see and hear the freedom of speech used in (what is to me) unacceptable ways.

Celebrities, without them, many people would be bored sitting at home all day with nothing to do. Most of the people abusing this freedom of speech, are celebrities, how though? By the songs that they sing, the choices that they make, and the control that they get over many people’s minds. If celebrities were not looked up to as much, or at all for that matter, I think that underage drinkers, high school dropouts, pregnant teens, sexually active teens, and many language choices used to day would be eliminated.
If you think about it, Freedom of Speech has an affect on all of the topics just listed. How though? Well when I was listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago, a song called ‘Real ***** Roll Call’ by Lil’Jon, and Ice Cube was played. After the song had been played, I was appalled and speechless, there were so many cuss words and terrible messages being sent through a period of time that was about three or four minutes. This is exactly what I heard, “It’s time for the real n**** roll call… You put your mother f***** middle finger up in the b****…Ya’ll n***** can’t f*** with my n***** h*….mother f*** that n**** mother f*** that b****……be some real a** treal a** n***** your n***** be some h* a** pussy a** n***** my n*****”. I do not think that it is important that we know every word that I did not say, but what is important is that our Freedom of Speech is being abused by people like Lil’Jon and Ice Cube.
When kids hear rappers, or singers not just Lil’Jon and Ice Cube, sing about doing drugs, being arrested and laughing it off, getting drunk, having or paying people to have sex, do you think that they understand what they are doing? My guess is no, and I sure hope not, because celebrities are so caught up in themselves that they do not realize that there are many insecure kids listening to their music and look up to them. When kids hear about the actions and things that celebrities sing about, then it makes them think, oh it is okay if I do drugs, or smoke, or have sex, and cuss.
Some people argue that the kids should get a new role model but how do you tell a kid to not idolize someone? It will not work, so let’s change the way their role models act, and let those role models become aware of how they influence them. Kids do act and try to copy their role models; this is where kids get messed up sometimes.
To prove my point that kids act like role models and usually they are not good role models, I took a survey in my English class one day. I found a couple of names that showed up multiple times, Kobe Bryant which we all know is not a good influence, Kurt Cobain, and Lil’Wayne, for those of you who do not know Lil’Wayne, he is a rap artist that raps about some of the topics previously talked about. It is songs like Lil’Wayne’s, and Lil’Jon’s that make me really think about if there should be more rules or changes made to the part of the First Amendment that talks about freedom of speech and the rights of it.