It was not the first thing they thought to include, it is an amendment -- literally something they did not bother to include when the wrote the original constit

It was not the first thing they thought to include, it is an amendment -- literally something they did not bother to include when the wrote the original constitution. It is also very clear from the context and time at which it was written that the "speech" referred to in the first amendment is political discourse, not speech in general. Plotting a violent overthrow of the government is not what the Founders had in mind, something that they themselves made clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_sedition_act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_sedition_act See the part about making false statements critical of the US government? Funny how Gab was created in response to Twitter taking action to stop people from doing exactly that on their platform. Whatever free speech ideal Gab stands for is not what people who ratified the first amendment had in mind.