Informant38

Just because it needs saying:
The First Amendment, or the constitutionally guaranteed right to Freedom of Speech, isn't given to anybody. It's already there. That's the point. It isn't a privilege, it's a right.
It gets taken away, but that's by assholes. Otherwise, if you leave it alone, it's going to be there.
It needs defending from assholes from time to time, and that's what made me write this - one too many times reading some smug apologist for the neo-fascists telling me how soldiers are fighting to secure my Freedom of Speech. The inference being any US soldiers now engaged in combat are defending me against people who want to take away my right to Freedom of Speech. If only they were.
Not that it doesn't happen - but the lines of battle aren't military. We're talking about speech. Soldiers can be and have been called upon to fight those who wish to curtail Freedom of Speech, but they can just as readily be deployed to take it away, and to defend those who take it away.
The front lines of defense for the First Amendment are located precisely where it's being attacked, where speech is being attacked, censored, blocked, denied. Those who defend the right to speak, especially of unpopular speakers saying unpopular things. That's who's defending Freedom of Speech, our right to speak freely. That's who's on the front line in that battle.