The Great Freedom

Freedom of speech is fundamental to the preservation of our other treasured freedoms.  It is sometimes obnoxious, sometimes expresses opinions that are absolutely wrong, sometimes distorts.  The Westboro Church pickets offend, totally misrepresent the Bible and God, and stretch the limits of freedom of speech.  I like the recently publicized response of the Patriot Guard at one funeral:  stand between the hate-speech and the mourners,with flags blocking the view, and motorcycle engines drowning out the insults.  That is a classic free-society response to the offensive.

 But, putting up with THAT is part of the price of maintaining the  fundamental freedom.  The alternative?  No matter how offended we might be  by their opinions, or other opinions that are generated as a free nation and  free people argue their way toward decisions made by a democracy, we don't  want the only alternative to free speech and a free press.  The only  alternative, desired by almost no one, would be to control speech or  writing.  It's either free or it's not.  The defense of freedom is not only  done in military terms, it is also done in terms of simply putting up with and defending the rights of those speakers with whom we absolutely disagree.

Is there anyone so offended that they would actually prefer to have a governmental agency determine what speech, what opinions, what political statements are legal or permitted?


Given time, free speech sorts out the lie from the truth, weeds out the trivial, exposes the demagogue, and cures the denial of reality.  Do I disagree with a speaker?  Sometimes, and when I do disagree, I want that speaker to have full access to a wide audience, confident that poor ideas contain the seeds of their own destruction.  Fifty years ago, many were afraid that communism would subvert the world;  given time, communism collapsed, unable to sustain itself in the real world, because it was simply untrue.  Propaganda never conquers truth, given the free exchange of ideas involved in freedom of speech.



Bottom line:  truth wins, hate-speech self-destructs, and freedom allows
that to happen.  Let's maintain it.