🔕 The First to Fall: How Freedom Is Being Silenced

The Social Contract | Week 2, Part 2 (Trigger Warning. This one might get you going)

May 21, 2025

If you want to understand what powerful people fear most, look at what they try to silence.

The First Amendment — with its five freedoms: speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition — is not just a set of rights written on paper. It’s the operating agreement of our democracy. It’s the foundation of the social contract in America — the deal that says, you may govern us, but we will hold you accountable. And right now, that foundation is cracking.

Not with one big explosion. But with a thousand careful cuts.
Not all at once. But methodically — and in plain sight.

Across the country, in classrooms and courtrooms, libraries and legislative halls, the First Amendment is being undermined. We are watching the most sacred promises of our democracy — the promises that let us challenge power, express belief, tell the truth, and demand change — slowly erode. Not by mistake. Not by misunderstanding. But by design.

This is how the social contract has always been treated in America: aspirational for some, denied for others, and fiercely resisted by those who fear its full expression.

The Quiet Dismantling of Freedom

Let’s be clear. The First Amendment hasn’t been repealed.
It’s still there — legally intact.
But freedom doesn’t always fall with a bang.
Sometimes it disappears with a whisper.

We see it when a high school teacher is disciplined for discussing slavery, or for acknowledging that gender identity is part of our nation's social fabric — not because the content is inaccurate, but because it makes some people uncomfortable.

We see it when students are suspended for organizing walkouts against gun violence, or when entire lesson plans are rewritten to avoid “divisive concepts.” When public school librarians are threatened with criminal charges for including books about race, gender, or history that don't align with a narrow political view.

We see it when Muslim Americans are surveilled in the name of “national security.” When Jewish synagogues require armed guards during Sabbath services. When Black churches are not only verbally attacked but have literally burned to the ground — and when law enforcement drags its feet on investigating those fires.

But we also see it when anti-abortion protesters are forced into “free speech zones” far from clinics — corralled not because they pose a threat, but because their views are uncomfortable or unpopular.

We see it when conservative speakers are disinvited from college campuses — not because they broke laws, but because student groups fear controversy or disruption.

We see it when Christian student organizations are denied recognition for following faith-based membership standards, while secular groups are allowed to organize freely.

We even see it when rural, working-class communities try to organize for clean water or access to healthcare and are ignored — not because their cause is invalid, but because their political power is low, and their stories don’t “fit.”

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re not just “left” or “right.”
They are examples of a broader erosion — a systemic tendency to suppress dissent, especially when that dissent threatens comfort, power, or the illusion of control.

This is not about agreeing with someone’s stance.
It’s about defending their right to have one — and to express it without fear, punishment, or erasure.

Because the true measure of a free society isn’t how it protects popular speech — it’s how it handles uncomfortable speech. And in that test, we are failing.

Who’s Doing the Silencing?

Let’s name names.
The people attacking the First Amendment are not fringe actors. They are elected officials, think tanks, media personalities, school boards, and even Supreme Court justices. They wear suits, not hoods. They pass laws, not manifestos. But the intent is no less corrosive.

They claim to be defenders of the Constitution, while stripping it of meaning. They can’t have it both ways!

Across red states, laws are being passed to restrict classroom discussions on race, gender, and history. Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act.” Texas’s anti-CRT measures. Arkansas’s bans on “indoctrination.” These aren’t just policies — they’re signals. They’re saying: Some truths are too dangerous to teach. Some people are too dangerous to trust with knowledge.

Far-right media outlets and influencers fuel the fire — equating protests with threats, diversity with division, and dissent with disloyalty. And they do so loudly, while demanding that others remain silent.

Our “feck-deficient” U.S. Congress, whose primary job is to be a CHECK on the other two branches and bring BALANCE to government, is watching in silence (while writing nice, flowery constituent newsletters).

Even the Supreme Court — once considered the final guardian of our liberties — has increasingly embraced a narrow reading of the First Amendment, granting expansive rights to corporations and conservative religious entities, while offering little protection to public educators, protesters, or marginalized groups.

The Social Contract, Shredded in Silence

Let’s remember what the social contract is:
It’s the agreement that the governed consent to authority in exchange for representation, protection, and a voice in their future.

But when you silence teachers, ban books, criminalize protests, and ignore petitions — you are breaking that agreement.

When you say, “leave it to the states” and then prevent states from deciding – you are breaking the agreement. You are turning democracy into something performative. A stage play with no script for dissent. A government with no interest in being governed.

Marginalized communities have always known this contract was conditional. Black folks didn’t need new voter suppression laws to know our voices weren’t equally valued. Native communities didn’t need TikTok bans to feel surveilled. Immigrants didn’t need free speech lawsuits to understand that some stories get erased on purpose.

But now? The silencing is spreading. And it’s reaching communities that long assumed their voices would always be protected.

This is how authoritarianism works. Not by immediately stripping away all rights. But by convincing people they have nothing to say. Or that saying it isn’t worth the risk.

Why They Always Come for the FIRST ONE First

The First Amendment was first for a reason.
Because without it, nothing else holds.

You can’t protect your vote if you can’t speak out when it’s threatened.
You can’t defend your community if your religion is under attack and you’re afraid to gather.
You can’t fix a broken system if journalists can’t report on the cracks.
You can’t challenge injustice if protesting lands you in jail.

The First Amendment is the entry point to every other freedom.
That’s why it’s always the first thing to be targeted — and the last thing to be restored.

What Happens When Silence Wins?

When we lose our First Amendment rights — even subtly — we lose:

Accountability
Transparency
Truth
Public memory
Resistance
Hope

And once silence sets in, it’s hard to break.

Because silence is not neutral. It’s not passive. It is a tool of power. And when the government silences you, it’s not just censoring words — it’s declaring whose lives matter and whose don’t.

That is the deepest betrayal of the social contract:
When the people in power decide they no longer have to listen.

So, What Do We Do?

This Friday, we’ll talk about how to fight back — in schools, in churches, in culture, and in conversation.

But for now, I want to leave you with three questions:

Who is being silenced right now in your community — and how?
What are you still free to say?
What are you afraid to say?

Because freedom is like oxygen. You don’t think about it — until it’s gone.

And the time to speak up is always before they shut you down.

Until Friday —
Dr. Chris Jones

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode:
🎙 In Good Faith with Dr. Chris Jones – Episode 2: Five Freedoms, One Promise

🧭 Catch up on earlier essays in the series:

#TheSocialContract #InGoodFaith #FirstToFall #FreeSpeechIsPower