Free Speech...or is that just too offensive for you?

(found on Richarddawkins.net)




This is our First Amendment and inherent in it lies the consequences of offending persons. To stamp out open questioning and criticism of absolutely anything not only teeters the practice of tolerance, it blatantly begs for a nation full of intolerant people because they are pregnant with ignorance.

Religion is already treated with an air of taboo because people are too afraid to say or question practices that they do not understand or do not agree with. If anything, religion should be the most important concepts to critically question. Women rights, homosexual rights, eating rights, and your right to practice your own religion (and to share it) without fear of reprobation is all dependant on being able to question and disagree with the very ideas and ideals of any religion which would confine, stifle, and imprison your own beautiful voice, your way of sacred worship or the lack of it.

Free speech gives us the very right to take a stand against intolerant acts that take away a women’s right to work, an African American to vote, a Christian to witness, atheists the right not to pretend, and it even gives Free Speech’s attackers the ground to suggest its removal from our mouth’s, inked hands, and printed words at the foot of our door.

Do you remember the Swedish Islamic Cartoons? What about the terrorist attack on 911, the bombings on London’s Underground, the vile murder of Theo van Gogh, and the endless list of intolerant actions? Think about your own questions or the conversations you have had with friends, do you believe those conversation should never again exist? Please take a few moments to read and learn about a country who does not believe in Free Speech, Turkey. Ask yourself, “Is this the way I want me, my family, and my friends to live?

It all sounds sweet to spare someone’s feelings until one’s feelings control a nation or a world. There are natural consequences to Free Speech and heinous consequences of its absence.

Cheers to the right of being offend and to offend! Now, lets talk about it.