Discussions about the first amendment often elide its true purpose, keeping the government honest. One way that a lack of free speech can hurt a country is that smarter individuals are more likely to get arrested due to their greater innate capability to come up with novel-to-them ideas, some of which are "booby trapped" and get their originators arrested. However, the consequences of it being illegal to make practical attempts at changing the government truly come home to roost when officials realize that they can steal. The less ability citizens have to exchange information that threatens the authority of the regime, the less able they are to not be stolen from. The problem with that is, private economic activity needs resources, and officials tend to take all they can get. Again and again, in the history of countries around the world, the activity of many individuals given relatively small domains of authority has lead to the destruction of the nation's industrial capacity. Since it is impossible to question the bribe-taking of the inspector without questioning the legitimacy of the system who installed him, criminals within government quickly discover that they can do anything they want, so long as they keep their superiors happy, which is typically accomplished by making sure they get a cut of the proceeds.