Friday, October 27, 2006

Freedom of Speech

What does freedom of speech mean to you? Does it mean you can call people "stupid cows"? Doe it mean you can spur hate about peoples choices and how they interfere with your own?

I always thought freedom of speech involved the sharing of ideas and civilized discussions. Imagine Martin Luther King in his freedom speech talking about the stupid white cows, can you imagine how well that would have went over? MLK is an icon for both black and white because of his carefully thought out words.

What brought this on you ask? I visited a forum recently and a visitor posted a thread about an experience she had totally attacking the person she was talking about instead of sharing the facts. I was totally lost by this conversation which was followed by responses of people who supported her nastiness.

Removing all the negativity from her response would have created a truly moving example but for me it was lost. Am I alone in this? Do we have to attack to get our feelings across. Someone would say I'm attacking this person right now but really, if you saw her message I am not. I have not called her anything other than she.

Of course none of my thoughts on this went over well. I was suppressing their freedom of speech. But I say, can't we just be nice... and get our thoughts and feeling across? Is it necessary to call people names and segregate ourselves?

I don't understand.

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