General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A war is raging against free speech [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Do you just know speech that incites to violence when you see it?
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
If the choice is saving the First Amendment or leaving the UN, I favor leaving the UN. If the world cannot live with our First Amendment it is doomed. The First Amendment makes it possible for people to express thoughts that offend religious leaders. It makes art and music and dance and science and expression, including religious expression, possible.
Think what it would have meant had Galileo not been silenced by religious leaders. Think what tolerance we would really enjoy if religious leaders could not dictate what can be said or not said in so many countries in the world.
Think about how much good our First Amendment has meant to us. Think about John Steinbeck and Henry David Thoreau and the great abolitionists and advocates for women. They all opposed the religious order of their time.
Barack Obama would not be president were it not for the First Amendment.
Martin Luther King would have died in prison were it not for the First Amendment.
And you cannot differentiate between speech that offends, say the Catholic Church or an Imam somewhere in the world and the speech that defends racism. For decades and decades, racism, slavery, cruelty to people of other races, was justified in the Southern United States by religion. Abuse of women is justified by religion. As is discrimination and persecution of homosexuality. The repression of artistic expression is justified by religion. And allowing religious expression includes, yes, allowing expression of ideas about religion that we find repulsive.
The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our nation. Without it we would be nothing.
The First Amendment has to be interpreted as protecting all kinds of speech that we do not like including pornography and racist speech.
You fight hate speech with love speech. And watch, the love speech will win out in the end. Because the reason people hate is that they want to be loved and respected and accepted. So in the end, the real solution is love speech. Speech that expresses tolerance and love.
The Imams and religious fanatics want to control others around them. They are fearful and want to control. If we give in to them and give up our First Amendment rights to them, we will soon be utterly under their control. As much as I support the United Nations, I would strongly support the idea that the US leave the UN if the UN advocates for the repression of speech of any kind.
Tolerance is the key.