Should Free Speech Be Contingent?
by Bob Clasen
What is the basic intellectual defense of free speech? It is that people are intelligent enough to make the best decision, if they are allowed free access to all of the relevant information. The defense of liberty assumes that it is safer to allow all points of view to battle it out in the marketplace of ideas rather than allow any particular group to enforce its point of view at the point of a gun.
This defense of Liberty assumes a rather optimistic opinion about the nature of man. It appears to me that since it has been allowed to dominate in the west, the results have not been so bad; better than in ages when proper opinion was dictated by the Church or State or both.
What does it say about a philosophy or religion that believes that any contrary opinion is "evil" and that it is good to throttle any hostile opinion by violence and force? What should we think of any philosophy which has spread itself over the world by force of arms rather than by persuasion and rational argument?
An interesting question is this: what do you do with a person or group which does not grant you the right to freedom of opinion or speech. Such a group tells you that if you express your honestly held opinion you will been assaulted or murdered. Yet this same group demands not only tolerance, but special privileges for its own group. Such a group feels free to insult and assault members of other groups, but demands (on threat of violence) the highest respect for its own sacred beliefs.
Should freedom of speech be granted reciprocally or not at all? By comparison, if a man attempts to obtain advantage by use of force, society reserves the right to use violence to capture and imprison him for its own self defense.
If a group refuses to ackowledge the rights of others to believe and speak freely as they see fit, should society afford them the luxury and privilege of free speech? Or should a group that refuses to allow other groups the freedom to express honest opinion by denied the right to promulagate its attack on freedom?
Just asking.
What is the basic intellectual defense of free speech? It is that people are intelligent enough to make the best decision, if they are allowed free access to all of the relevant information. The defense of liberty assumes that it is safer to allow all points of view to battle it out in the marketplace of ideas rather than allow any particular group to enforce its point of view at the point of a gun.
This defense of Liberty assumes a rather optimistic opinion about the nature of man. It appears to me that since it has been allowed to dominate in the west, the results have not been so bad; better than in ages when proper opinion was dictated by the Church or State or both.
What does it say about a philosophy or religion that believes that any contrary opinion is "evil" and that it is good to throttle any hostile opinion by violence and force? What should we think of any philosophy which has spread itself over the world by force of arms rather than by persuasion and rational argument?
An interesting question is this: what do you do with a person or group which does not grant you the right to freedom of opinion or speech. Such a group tells you that if you express your honestly held opinion you will been assaulted or murdered. Yet this same group demands not only tolerance, but special privileges for its own group. Such a group feels free to insult and assault members of other groups, but demands (on threat of violence) the highest respect for its own sacred beliefs.
Should freedom of speech be granted reciprocally or not at all? By comparison, if a man attempts to obtain advantage by use of force, society reserves the right to use violence to capture and imprison him for its own self defense.
If a group refuses to ackowledge the rights of others to believe and speak freely as they see fit, should society afford them the luxury and privilege of free speech? Or should a group that refuses to allow other groups the freedom to express honest opinion by denied the right to promulagate its attack on freedom?
Just asking.
Comments
We never actually got into a live shooting war with them. Thus, diplomacy, economic might, etc. does work without a shooting war.
Can you formulate any argument to support what to you seems self evident? It seems to me that someone who commits violence against another merely for expressing an opinion thereby gives up the right to express his own opinion.