Platt said to Ron:Once liberty is lost it is almost impossible to get back, and perhaps our most precious liberty is to speak openly without fear of reprisal.
dmb says:I guess it depends on what you mean by "reprisal". If it means violence or some kind of revenge, especially by the authorities, then I'd agree. But what concerns me is that free speech comes with a responsibility. If we aren't willing to stand up and defend our own statements, what's the point of making them? It wouldn't be fair to walk away or evade whatever responses our words might inspire. Freedom of speech makes a lot of sense when it is seen as a right of the intellect, as a protector of the intellect. When things like political hate, religious bigotry or pornography get mixed into the issue, this intellectual purpose is lost and the meaning of free speech evaporates. These things are almost never intellectual and most porn isn't even speech of any kind. We have to put up with this stuff to protect actual freedom of speech because we can never know in advance where the great ideas will come from but I sure wouldn't put my money on the freaks who peddle junk like that. Instead of risking free speech rights by restricting that, all a person can do is respond to the hateful bigots by exercising your own free speech rights. If it's out there on the table, then it's fair game. People are responsible for what they say. In that sense, I'm very much in favor of "reprisals". Reprisals are what keep us honest. _________________________________________________________________ Lauren found her dream laptop. Find the PC that’s right for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/choosepc/?ocid=ftp_val_wl_290 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
