An eloquent and unabashedly spirited defence of the absolute right of free speech even for those citizens who are lacking in manners ,judgment and sanity .All modern successors from Hitler to Aurangzeb have insisted that only one man or one party or one book represents the absolute truth and to challenge it is folly or worse.But all it takes is little one to blurt out the inconvenient truth that emperor is as naked as the day he was born.
Here my opinion is simple one.The right of others to free expression is part of my own.If someone's voice is silenced ,then I am deprived of the right to hear .I think a right is a right ,if this right is denied to one faction it will not stop there.Almost all the free speech cases in the human record involve the strange concept of blasphemy,which is actually the simple concept that certain things just cannot be said or heard.
Democracy and pluralism do indeed demand a certain commitment to good manners,but Islam is a religion that makes large claims for itself and can hardly demand that such claims be immune from criticism.Famines are almost invariably caused not by shortage of food but by stupid hoarding in times of crisis.Bear this in mind whenever you hear free expression described as a luxury.
Wherever the light of free debate and expression is extinguished ,the darkness is deeper ,more palpable and more protracted.But the urge to shut out bad news or opinions will always be strong one,which is why the battle to reaffirm freedom of speech needs to be refought in every generation.
Here my opinion is simple one.The right of others to free expression is part of my own.If someone's voice is silenced ,then I am deprived of the right to hear .I think a right is a right ,if this right is denied to one faction it will not stop there.Almost all the free speech cases in the human record involve the strange concept of blasphemy,which is actually the simple concept that certain things just cannot be said or heard.
Democracy and pluralism do indeed demand a certain commitment to good manners,but Islam is a religion that makes large claims for itself and can hardly demand that such claims be immune from criticism.Famines are almost invariably caused not by shortage of food but by stupid hoarding in times of crisis.Bear this in mind whenever you hear free expression described as a luxury.
Wherever the light of free debate and expression is extinguished ,the darkness is deeper ,more palpable and more protracted.But the urge to shut out bad news or opinions will always be strong one,which is why the battle to reaffirm freedom of speech needs to be refought in every generation.
