Preview
  • The Indispensable Right

  • Free Speech in an Age of Rage
  • By: Jonathan Turley
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Turley
  • Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (97 ratings)

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The Indispensable Right

By: Jonathan Turley
Narrated by: Jonathan Turley
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Publisher's summary

A timely, revelatory look at freedom of speech—our most basic right and the one that protects all the others.

Free speech is a human right, and the free expression of thought is at the very essence of being human. The United States was founded on this premise, and the First Amendment remains the single greatest constitutional commitment to the right of free expression in history. Yet there is a systemic effort to bar opposing viewpoints on subjects ranging from racial discrimination to police abuse, from climate change to gender equity. These measures are reinforced by the public’s anger and rage; flash mobs appear today with the slightest provocation. We all lash out against anyone or anything that stands against our preferred certainty.

The Indispensable Right places the current attacks on free speech in their proper historical, legal, and political context. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not only written for times like these, but in a time like this. This country was born in an age of rage and for 250 years we have periodically lost sight of the value of free expression. The history of the struggle for free speech is the story of extraordinary people—nonconformists who refuse to yield to abusive authority—and here is a mosaic of vivid characters and controversies.

Jonathan Turley takes you through the figures and failures that have shaped us and then shows the unique dangers of our current moment. The alliance of academic, media, and corporate interests with the government’s traditional wish to control speech has put us on an almost irresistible path toward censorship. The Indispensable Right reminds us that we remain a nation grappling with the implications of free expression and with the limits of our tolerance for the speech of others. For rather than a political crisis, this is a crisis of faith.

©2024 Jonathan Turley (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio
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What listeners say about The Indispensable Right

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Great teacher.

Congress should listen to him. They DO need a law school lecture on the 1st amendment.

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Fantastic

Fantastic analysis of the history of free speach and the 1ST amedment. I wish our politicians would read this.

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Turley’s voice, reciting text

I like Turley, or what I’ve seen and read in his columns. His delivery is always natural and feels unrehearsed. I’ve never read a book outloud, but his cadence in this recording is stilted, as if the recorded version was the first time he’d seen the text. It’s a bit distracting when the author appears to be unfamiliar with his own writing.

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Informative but Tiresome

Big fan of the author but feels like a summary like college class. Great information but I expected to enjoy this more than I did.

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Great, remarkable history lesson, should you think we haven’t been through this thing before…in one form or another.

An exceptional read or listen, depending on how you prefer. It goes into a long history of human thought, speech, and how being able to express ourselves is an intrinsic part of being human.
The audio book is read by the author, which is always how I prefer, when consuming a book in the medium. There are a number of different theories presented, regarding how free speech is considered either dangerous to or required in a free society. I wholeheartedly recommend the book.
There is a lot covered, requiring considerable review and reflection, on my part. It may be one of those books, I need to hold in my hand and read myself, with highlighter and pen in hand.

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horrible narration

While I took away a good overview of the history and thesis by the end of the book, getting the details along the way was nearly impossible because the narration is atrocious. I found myself losing his point time and time again due to his bizarre placements of emphasis on words and in sentences. Best of luck

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The complexities of free speech

I liked the author reading the book, the fact that the premise of the book stretched my thinking, and the history I learned along the way. Free speech is a complex right. Great book!

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God created us with inalienable rights and freedom of thought and speech are up at the top.

loved the scholarly effort with real world examples. I'm not a historian nor legal scholar yet this book helped me grasp an important dynamic of today's divided world, the misunderstanding of what constitutes free speech.

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Indispensable

This book is an indispensable guide to the development of the concept of Free Speech and the continuing efforts to censor it by so many governments. It starts with a quick look at the origins of freedom of speech and thought in ancient Greece and quickly moves on to England and the continuing effort of many kings to stop the people from criticizing them including the infamous Star Chambers. Turley then documents how Free Speech concerns were a principal cause of the American Revolution and how many of the Founding Fathers wrote eloquently about the need for Free Speech. They felt so strongly about this that they incorporated it as an inalienable right in the First Amendment. Unfortunately, from that point forward, the same men who had castigated Britain for censoring them began to do the same to their political opponents. The book frankly becomes depressing as generation after generation of American leaders sought to use the very same justifications that Britain had used against its own subjects to justify restricting the speech rights of their fellow citizens in the United States.

Turley takes the reader right up to the presentation day and the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, exploring the line between free speech and action. He then steps back and explores critical judicial decisions and the developing philosophy of the free speech movement. An example of this is his explanation of how the famous, “You can’t shout fire in a theater,” line was written, and then gives it full context. The line is actually, “You can’t falsely shout fire in a crowded theater,” and it was used to confirm the guilty verdict (and therefore a jail sentence) of Shenk, a socialist who wrote a pamphlet encouraging Americans to write to the their congressmen and ask them to repeal the draft law during World War I. Thank about that for a moment. This man was jailed for asking people to lobby their elective representatives. Justice Holmes, who wrote the infamous “fire in a theater” line later came to regret the original decision.

For anyone interested in the health of democracy, this book is a must read. It is easy to follow the narrative and packed full with cogent arguments supporting the need for free speech if democratic institutions are to survive and thrive.

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Amazing

I learned so much from reading this book! I’m sure that I will refer back to it often.

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