All Comments on 'Free or Not So Free Speech'

Literotica is a good example of Free Speech at work--with no limits other than the ones we impose on ourselves. It is more dangerous to hide an idea than to expose it and play with it, to explore its consequences and impact in a hypothetical context.

Context is important for discriminating between ideas, in helping us judge and digest what we come across, and advisory stickers may have their place.

One Love,

Judge Knot

Food for thought.

"Nikolai Tesla was in fact, the inventor of the telephone, the radio and the light bulb." Really? I guess I have some research to do, unless you'd like to help me out and send me your resources?

I have noticed the ever changing history book. Be careful, children, what is "history" today may be a figment of your imagination tomorrow, as things are white washed or erased altogether. I do not have current facts at my disposal to back up that statement, which is why I seldom make that argument, but I'm sure I can find them if needed.

Nice job! ~Minx

Hate to burst your bubble but it was Antonio Meucci an Italian inventor that first invented the telephone in 1849 and it was officially credited by the US House of Representatives somewhere in 2002. Nikolai developed the 'telephone repeater' in 1881 while was being employed in Yugoslav as an engineer

and thanks for sharing this!

I'm not sure when you posted this, it's not showing the date as I write this, but much of what you say makes sense. On the issue of gun control, I find that while I don't like the idea of kids shooting other kids, or some psycho idiot with a gun trying to get revenge, I think it's very wrong to take away our right to have weapons if we so choose. What if I needed something to protect myself. Yeah, they always make the statements of, "if you're not trained, you'll just end up hurting yourself"...well you know what, I'll take that chance. And not that I'm going to get a weapon right now, but if I wanted to and my background is clean, why should people be given the 3rd degree. I was always taught, and this is what was successful about WW2, that whoever holds the weapons holds the power, so taking away people's rights for weapons is trying to strip them of that power. The secret police and the various forms of it through-out history, every culture seems to have one just about.The senators of Rome were often conspiring against each other for power (and not just to kill Caesar). I'm not the biggest history buff, as I prefer fantasy literature myself over reality, but I'd like to think I've still studied my fair share of "history".

My biggest problem with free speech is not so much that people shouldn't be allowed to express themselves, but when people don't like you, for whatever reason & decide that they'd rather try and silence you, instead of just letting you go about your business, but instead decide to flame you and harass you, in only the way the internet seems to provide. Would this type of harassment exist in person (what was once only one or two bullies has become lots of bullies), so it can be tough to defend against something you can't even see, at most usually it's just one person who might not want you to speak your mind. Several people are right that no one has to listen if they don't want, they can ignore it, turn the page, or go to something else.

First, I assume you speak of the right to free speech. Rights are abstract things that evade firm definition. Another great American thinker, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "But for legal purposes a right is only the hypostasis of a prophesy--the imagination of a sustance supporting the fact that the public force will be brought to bear upon those who do things said to contravene it." He meant that a "right" is just an axiom presumed from a prediction of consequences. Basically, if I am a government, and I begin dumping horseshit on the heads of my citizens every day, they are likely to rise against me or take some other action to prevent my shit-dumping. Their right not to have horseshit dumped on their heads only arises from my understanding of what will happen if I am to do so. So, the right to free speech ends where we let it. Our government works in interacting social interests (flawed because the wealthy possess a pretty disproportionately large influence). If you are not satisfied with the degree to which you are able to express yourself, find a way to influence the political process. Join a movement, campaign and what not. But, understand that arguing over the bounds of rights on an inherent level is a pointless task. It may be fun, but no more.