Friday 9 June 2006

Propositions on free speech

It seems timely to repost my Propositions on Free Speech, which I hope will help to show the legitimate moral parameters of free speech -- as one NZ blogger reminds us this morning, the local legal parameters of free speech are markedly more contrained.
The right to free speech means the right to express one's ideas without danger of coercion, of physical suppression or of interference by the state.

Bad ideas are still ideas. You should be just as free to air them as I should be to ignore them, or to pillory them.

Just as I must take responsibility for what I do with my health and my life, so too must I take responsibility for what I say.

I may be offended, but I may not commit violence against those who offend me. I may boycott, but I may not behead.

The right to free speech gives the smallest minority the absolute protection of the state to air their views.


The smallest minority is the individual.
Continue reading here.

LINKS: Some propositions on free speech - Not PC (Peter Cresswell)
What freedom of speech? - Relative Humility

TAGS: Free_Speech, New_Zealand

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