Title: Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute - spiked
Headings: Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute
Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute
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Content: Congress’, it runs, ‘shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’ It doesn’t say ‘Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech except when a person uses threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to stir up hatred’. It doesn’t say ‘Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech except when it is necessary to protect health or morals, or the reputation or rights of others’. In short, it doesn’t contain caveats or exceptions. In the eyes of the Founding Fathers, people’s freedom to think what they choose to think, to believe what they choose to believe, and to say what they want to, was absolute – it brooked no compromise. And why were there none of the exceptions, or the caveats, or the famous ‘limits’ to free speech that we’d no doubt find if a Bill of Rights was drawn up to today? Because, quite simply, freedom of thought and speech was seen as something too important to be bounded or qualified. It wasn’t that someone like Thomas Jefferson, or Tom Paine, or Voltaire, not to mention the many others who breathed in the radical, liberty-thirsting air of the time, were unaware of malicious speech, or abusive speech, or even just plain idiotic speech.