Title: Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute - spiked
Headings: Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute
Yes, freedom of speech should be absolute
Podcast
Why we must never lock down again
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Podcast
Why the left keeps losing
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Content: Hence the architects of the Bill or Rights felt no need to add in caveats to that effect – because neither they nor the citizens they represented were idiots. But the majority of those who accompany their profession of support for free speech with a whole raft of anti-free-speech qualifications do so for subtler reasons. They emphasise the harm that speech can do. They talk, as one columnist did recently, of ‘issues of security and personal safety, of the value of truth and honesty, the need to treat others with respect’. Or, as another columnist did, they warn of the dangerous influence of certain speech: ‘ The fractional loss of liberty entailed in penalising the expression of neo-Nazi views or Holocaust denial seems a small price to pay compared to what can follow if the far right is shielded all the way into power.’ Podcast
Why the left keeps losing
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What becomes clear is that all those who determinedly qualify freedom out of speech don’t really believe in free speech at all. They pose as reasonable and moderate. And they act as if their worries over unfettered free speech are born of a concern for others. But in reality, their problem is that they can only see freedom of speech in negative terms, as something that can cause harm or damage.