free speech or just offensive -- essays research papers

Free Speech or Just Offensive?     A highly debated topic as of advanced has been the staggering rise of offensivelanguage and topics of the medicine industry, which have infiltrated through. Should theartists of this symphony be punished for corrupting the minds of the people who listen to it?Or should the medicinal drugians rights be protect by the first amendment?     The main problem to be seen is that this music has become extremely popular tothe youth. With this popularity comes blow after blow from the media, parents, andorganizations putting down the music because they believe its corrupting the children. All of these criticisms towards music have even made the government step in and putparental advisory warnings on the CDs. This lets the consumer make out that the CD theyare buying has adult language, violence, or sexual references in the songs. Thegovernment has also set an age minimum of seventeen years gray-headed to even purc hase theoffensive CDs. After all of this is said and done, the albums are still selling millions ofcopies.     It is a whole different market today, set on exploiting the rebels "fuck you I wontdo what you tell me" attitude of the youth. "Big bucks is the name of the game. saysmusic critic Harvey Bickle. This implies that these stars that have risen from this musicare only doing so to make themselves a quick buck. Whether or non this is true, we stillsupport these stars and will continue to do so. But is there any evidence that the music ishurting anyone?      Many reasons offensive music has been blamed can be documented through pastincidences. During the Columbine shooting, the media was blaming the music of MarlinManson because of his dark songs. This idea of music creating violence is not a newone. In 1982 ACDC put out a song called Night Stalker on their album. Later on thatyear, a killer roamed the countryside while assuming the alias Night Stalker, and wasconvinced that the lyrics from ACDCs song drove him to do these disgusting acts ofmurder. Many cases like this have been brought to court, but notably, not one has provedtheir case against the artist.     How could we come to the conclusion that the music caused these mass killingsand riots a... ...r a redress of grievances." (Duemler, David34). This basically means that as an artist or unbendable person, one may speak or illustrateanything without being punished or revised as long as it is done so in a respectablemanner. There is even an entire organization supporting and fighting for the firstamendment for artist called the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. Itis ironic that the amendment that protects the artist is also the amendment that allowspeople to protest against it. Overall the point is that most of our basic laws come fromthese amendments, and they are what America was built on, so how can we c ite artistsof breaking the law when all they were doing was following it?      Although the music industry is becoming more and more controversial, it stilldoes not give anyone the right to ban or prosecute someones music, because an artist hasthe right to a freedom of expression. People who disagree with this, can choose not buythe music or change the station when its on the radio, but they cannot destroy it or theartist because freedom of speech is what makes this country so great and free.