Freedom of Speech as protected in the Constitution includes freedom to speak without fear of retribution or censorship in private and in public. It covers the freedom to listen, the freedom to see, the freedom to know.

As Founding Father Benjamin Franklin noted in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1737, “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”

Restrictions on freedom of speech and are spreading and increasing in America today as the left tries to normalize censorship of its ideological opponents.

Citizens—particularly conservatives—are finding it increasingly more difficult to engage in debate without censorship by social media giants who at often operating at the behest of elected officials.

There is no more egregious offense to freedom of speech, indeed—the very definition of fascism—when government uses the private sector as the means to silence its opposition.

Every American is protected by the Constitution from government limiting their speech on any subject, including issues of faith or politics.

American Constitutional Rights Union holds that free speech is more than an Amendment, it’s a principle; a cornerstone stone of American freedom. No group of Americans with economic and technological dominance should censor another group of Americans without that level of power with whom they disagree.

Free speech is more than a legal principle; it is a broadly held social value. Otherwise, it loses its meaning.

As “free speech” and “censorship” are oppositional principles—one based in liberty and the other in tyranny—ACRU will stand firmly for constitutionally-protected free speech and the open and free exchange of differing ideas within the public square and inside the marketplace of ideas.