A brilliant essay, Chipotle. In all honesty, you bring up the very essence of the problem with unrestrained free speech, although I'm not sure if that's what you intended to do. It has been my experience, and please tell me if you've found this as well, that the rampant half-truths of pundits and over-zealous prosthletyzers (religious, political, social, etc...) help foster this disinformation and distrust. The demonization of the words "Liberal" and "Conservative" are just the tip of the iceberg ... an iceberg that's on a collision course with human impetus.
The more we see the looming "evils" on the horizon, the more we see the perceived monumentus nature of the opposition (whether or not it is truly there), the more we back down and just try to protect ourselves. It's animal nature. (And the source of at least several short stories I'm working on...) ;)
I think that by allowing people to say what they want with no requirement of honesty, we only undermine true freedom of expression. I say this because, after a while, the truth gets ignored along with all the lies. And if the true message gets ignored, freedom of expression has been circumvented. After all, you can say what you want, but if you poison the minds of the populace sufficiently, you can still stop the message by tainting its reception.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2002-04-30 08:03 (UTC)The more we see the looming "evils" on the horizon, the more we see the perceived monumentus nature of the opposition (whether or not it is truly there), the more we back down and just try to protect ourselves. It's animal nature. (And the source of at least several short stories I'm working on...) ;)
I think that by allowing people to say what they want with no requirement of honesty, we only undermine true freedom of expression. I say this because, after a while, the truth gets ignored along with all the lies. And if the true message gets ignored, freedom of expression has been circumvented. After all, you can say what you want, but if you poison the minds of the populace sufficiently, you can still stop the message by tainting its reception.
Whatta ya think, sirs?
Yours,
Dave (Sylvan)u