Freedom of Speech

“While I may not agree with what you have said, I will defend to my death your right to say it” – Voltaire attributed.

Freedom of Speech is an undeniable right and privilege. Short of being physically restrained, no one can take away your right to speak out and be heard. Newspaper columns have for years have had opinion columns where the general populace, whom mostly would never have a public platform, has the opportunity to be heard. With the advent of the internet this has been taken even further. Nowadays most people either have a blog (a personal, internet accessible platform for their opinions) or they have access to such platform.

Freedom of Speech is also a privilege in that it comes with inherent responsibilities. One may say whatever one wishes but should also be prepared to defend their words when called on them. The internet to some extent has eroded the ‘responsibility’ part of this freedom. People can now say whatever they wish and hide behind an anonymous handle or tag thereby removing themselves from any accountability. They are no longer forced to stand behind their words and accept any rebuttal or consequences as they may be.

On the internet this has led to a bit of regression of humanity and polite society. Without freedom of speech governed by accountability, one may now find the internet littered with obscenities and threats, or flames as they are sometimes called. They walk this line of public platform and zero accountability. These threats even find their way to instant messages and emails – the fault, I believe, resting in the fact that in this day and age it is real quick and easy to click ‘send’ whereas in the days of yore one would have to write a letter and make more of an effort before exercising their ‘Right to Speech’ thereby giving themselves some time to cool off and perhaps decide what they had to say was not that important after all.

This has been no more evident than in the last few days in the comments on my blog http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=17894517&blogID=429940588 ‘Bed of Nails’ and ‘Wayne’ have both overstepped their bounds and regressed into a bit of childishness resorting to idle threats. Idle because I believe they are both speaking from a passion in their hearts and not as much a governed thought and defendable position. I in no way condone any threats or threatening behavior, it is an abuse of freedom, but in the interest of accountability and responsibility I leave both their comments up for public view so the community at large can decide for themselves.

Freedom of Speech is the most important tenet of our society – the foundation on which so much of life as we know it is based - but it must be governed by thought and control. Anything else shows disrespect. Disrespect for yourselves, your fellow man, and all the men and women whom have died so that we may live and have these freedoms. Freedom of Speech is the greatest power we as a society have, to speak out against injustice, to stand up for what is right, and to shine a light of accountability on those who wish to conspire in secret. It is not up to others to censor you or anyone at all. It is up to us to censor ourselves. A well-known superhero of our time has said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” I ask you all to think on that.

Comment in my Forum

people misuse and abuse their freedoms.