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: Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute - spiked
Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute
This fundamental liberty shouldn’t be killed with qualifications. Share
Topics Free Speech
Imagine if the Founding Fathers had conceived of liberty and freedom in contemporary terms, as problems to be managed, as sources of risk and harm. Imagine if Thomas Jefferson had penned the Declaration of Independence now, with the assertion that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable rights coupled with the get-out ‘except when said pursuit causes ill health’. Imagine if the American Constitution and, subsequently, the Bill of Rights had been drawn up today, complete with a set of sub-claused qualifications and caveats about offending people on grounds of race or religion. As for the First Amendment, so crystalline in its protection of free speech and press freedom, it just could not have been formulated today in the way that it was. ‘ 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’.