Project Purpose: We all find ourselves in the minority opinion at least once in our lives. Only then do we prize the critical value of free speech. Those who value the principle of free speech understand and tolerate ideas that they may harshly reject at a personal level. The evolution of our core values is constantly changing, depending on the times in which we live. How we assign “meaning” or “context” to a given act, phrase or symbol is always subject to manipulation by others—people who want us to think a certain way—like them. Influencers are everywhere: sports figures, rap musicians, politicians, religious leaders, billionaires, marketing executives, news anchors, political pundits, and, yes, your friends and significant others. They each contribute to helping us form judgements and assign meaning and context to actions and objects. In a healthy society, each of us compare the words and actions from a diverse pool of influencers, then draw conclusions and make choices in a free-thinking way. The danger is when, often by our own choices, and often through the demagogues who we so admire, we are told that the ideas of others are hateful and dangerous. We take a step back out of fear and instinct, then naturally, seek out the herd to protects us—those who think the way we do. We draw the battle lines, but, more importantly, we assign negative meaning and context to whatever outsiders say or do thereafter. We avoid them influencing the herd by trying to silence our newfound enemies. It becomes us versus them. We lock ourselves down in our own traps. We believe that hate is everywhere and, as a self-assigned member of the moral police, you hunt it down and try to destroy it. You become intolerant to anything outside your own belief system—outside your own echo chamber.  You are no longer a human being. You’ve lost all independent thinking. You are simply a programmed mound of flesh, told what to do and when to do it by the leaders of the herd. They have made you that way—your puppet masters. The Facebook group, “Project Nightfall” (4.7M followers), may have summed it up best in this short video clip: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectNightfall/videos/343496750402642/?vh=e&extid=0
The purpose of the Free Speech Project is to qualify the degree of tolerance that the people of a community have chosen for themselves, and how far they are willing to go to protect the herd. Are we still free to make our own choices, or have our “choices” already been programmed for us? How flexible are we to have our minds changed? Are we willing to listen to others who hold views different than our own? Do we still seek out diverse opinions before we form our own judgments or do we always seek out the comfort of our own flocks for reaffirmation and conformance?

Project Objectives: The overarching objectives of the Free Speech Project are to answer two important questions: (1) will the people of the community suppress or advocate for an individual’s right to expression even when the majority may strongly disagree (based on a small sampling of the community) with the message and (2) are minority voices still protected by our 1st Amendment rights, particularly in Santa Cruz, where we measure whether those rights are alive (diversity of viewpoints) or dead (speech reserved for a select few)? The first question will be answered through our Phase One survey; the second by whether or not the City Council grants the project a permit. Whether the mural eventually sees life on the streets or lies forever dormant in a filing cabinet, in the end, that’s far from the essential point. Although many may see the mural only as a vile display of everything evil in the world, we see it as a patriotic message and an olive branch to help us break the cycle that make us miserable every day, despising those who have perspectives that are foreign to the values that we cherish. While one person may see evil, another person may see pride. That’s a problem. How can that be? Are we that different from one another? Are we being manipulated in any way? We may never know unless we are willing to walk away from the safety of the herd.

Types of Speech Permitted by the City of Santa Cruz Today: some of the photos this project has taken of recent expressions of free speech that is tolerated by Santa Cruz residents, and protected (as it should be) by the City Council, depict the extent of permissible speech from one side of the political spectrum. This project wishes to project its own statement of an alternative perspective, to gauge whether its message will have equal access to the various public speech platforms offered by the community, and to encourage the entire community to take the first step toward bringing the two sides together (see Mural Vision).