In my pre-adolescent days, I instigated fights in school by saying something that disrupted others, whether offensive or simply annoying. After being confronted by classmates and seeing firsthand vandalism in my school, I decided to get into and practice law. The reason is so I can understand the fundamentals of our country. Obviously now, that’s in the past. But if you’ve spent time online, you might not know that. We all have basic standards on what to say and not to say in public. But almost everyone is wrong about those particular standards. But the people in government who perhaps should know better do not know better. An example of this is New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s stating “I’ll protect the First Amendment any day of the week. But you don’t protect hate speech. You don’t protect incendiary speech. You’re not allowed to scream “fire” in a crowded theater. There are limitations on speech.” The only takeaway from this statement is that Hochul does not understand free speech. People do not have general knowledge of the First Amendment. Which is understandable, but can lead to conflict. But in this article, I’ll explain some common misconceptions about the First Amendment. As well as providing clarification to what people think.