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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (61108)	10/4/2002 5:06:43 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

Absolutely. Any freedom is only a freedom if it survives at the edges. Not over the edges, which is the point where it infringes on the rights of others (like yelling Fire in a crowded theater, the classic example.) But at the edges. One can virtually guarantee that speech at the edges will offend somebody, and probably many somebodies. So if one tries to ban offensive speech, one can guarantee that one is narrowing the rights. And then, of course, what was comfortably inside becomes the edge, and now that the precedent of narrowing the freedom is established, it goes. And oon we have nothing but the core of speech that offends nobody. Which is the end of free speech. What is scary, to me at least, is that this seems to be the clear direction that much of our society is going. So sometimes I feel a need to put out speech I know will be offensive just in order to assert that that right still exists, and to make sure it hasn't yet been infringed. Sort of a shock troop for free speech, as it will. As with most shock troops, I get shot at a lot, but that comes with the territory. Freedom isn't free, and free speech isn't either.