The First Amendment was supposed to be unbreakable

Photo: Mike Newbry via Unsplash.

Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is not about late-night TV. It is about the soul of the First Amendment.

Free speech is not polite speech. Free speech is not safe speech. Free speech is the right to offend power. It is the right to mock leaders. It is the right to tell truth when lies are demanded.

When the First Amendment is strong, no president, no Congress, no billionaire can silence you. It protects comedians. It protects journalists. It protects you and me.

But when it is weak, when fear takes over, people are not citizens anymore. They are subjects.

I know what happens when free speech collapses. My family remembers Marcos in the Philippines. The papers were shuttered. The journalists jailed. The artists silenced. Families whispered because the walls had ears.

Look to Russia under Putin. Journalists poisoned. Protesters vanished. Dissent branded extremism.

Look to China under Xi. Entire platforms erased. Entire peoples silenced. Every text, every post, monitored and controlled.

Look to Venezuela under Maduro. Newspapers gone. Critics beaten. Voices forced into exile.

And now look here. In America. They silenced a comedian. Do not tell me it is nothing. Every dictatorship begins with small acts of censorship. This is how it starts.

And listen to what President Trump says. He demands punishment for those who burn the American flag, even though the Supreme Court has ruled it is protected speech. He has declared that rainbow flags should be banned. He wants to erase symbols of protest, symbols of pride, symbols of dissent. If he gets away with this, what will stop him from going further?

What comes next?

The banning of LGBTQ flags at schools and public events.

The removal of campaign signs and T-shirts from your own front yard.

Penalties for anti-government messages in your personal emails and chats.

State-sponsored censorship of books, newspapers, and art.

The erasure of history itself.

Do not think this is paranoia. This is the playbook. Marcos did it. Putin does it. Xi does it. Maduro does it. And unless we fight, it will be done here.

So what do we do? We do not sit quietly. We speak. We write. We protest. We show up. We defend comedians, even if we do not like their jokes. We defend journalists, even when they anger us. We defend the right of our neighbor to fly a rainbow flag or burn an American one, because the First Amendment is worthless if it only protects what is popular.

We support independent media. We donate to groups that fight censorship in the courts. We call our representatives and demand courage, not cowardice. We refuse to let fear muzzle us.

The First Amendment must be unbreakable. If it cannot withstand a late-night monologue, it cannot withstand tyranny.

And tyranny is knocking.

I will not be silent.

Silence is complicity.

Complicity is how free nations fall.

And I will not let mine fall without a fight.