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I am horrified to see a reasonably intelligent person advocating such ability to restrict speech in a free society. It is my opinion that you have the absolute, utter right to continue believing those things in your religion with which I disagree. I claim the same right myself. Historically, people have been tortured and killed for having the wrong religious beliefs. That was evil....Of course, I do not believe that all of the above assumptions are true, but if they were true, then yes, you would be justified in attempting to amend the laws as you propose...
I am horrified to see a reasonably intelligent person advocating such ability to restrict speech in a free society. It is my opinion that you have the absolute, utter right to continue believing those things in your religion with which I disagree. I claim the same right myself. Historically, people have been tortured and killed for having the wrong religious beliefs. That was evil.
MIRARI VOSI am horrified to see a reasonably intelligent person advocating such ability to restrict speech in a free society. It is my opinion that you have the absolute, utter right to continue believing those things in your religion with which I disagree. I claim the same right myself. Historically, people have been tortured and killed for having the wrong religious beliefs. That was evil.
MIRARI VOS
13. Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"
14. This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.
15. Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?
16. The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books. It may be enough to consult the laws of the fifth Council of the Lateran on this matter and the Constitution which Leo X published afterwards lest "that which has been discovered advantageous for the increase of the faith and the spread of useful arts be converted to the contrary use and work harm for the salvation of the faithful." This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine. "We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it.
17. We have learned that certain teachings are being spread among the common people in writings which attack the trust and submission due to princes; the torches of treason are being lit everywhere. Care must be taken lest the people, being deceived, are led away from the straight path. May all recall, according to the admonition of the apostle that "there is no authority except from God; what authority there is has been appointed by God. Therefore he who resists authority resists the ordinances of God; and those who resist bring on themselves condemnation." Therefore both divine and human laws cry out against those who strive by treason and sedition to drive the people from confidence in their princes and force them from their government.
18. And it is for this reason that the early Christians, lest they should be stained by such great infamy deserved well of the emperors and of the safety of the state even while persecution raged. This they proved splendidly by their fidelity in performing perfectly and promptly whatever they were commanded which was not opposed to their religion, and even more by their constancy and the shedding of their blood in battle. "Christian soldiers," says St. Augustine, "served an infidel emperor. When the issue of Christ was raised, they acknowledged no one but the One who is in heaven. They distinguished the eternal Lord from the temporal lord, but were also subject to the temporal lord for the sake of the eternal Lord." St. Mauritius, the unconquered martyr and leader of the Theban legion had this in mind when, as St. Eucharius reports, he answered the emperor in these words: "We are your soldiers, Emperor, but also servants of God, and this we confess freely . . . and now this final necessity of life has not driven us into rebellion: I see, we are armed and we do not resist, because we wish rather to die than to be killed." Indeed the faith of the early Christians shines more brightly, if with Tertullian we consider that since the Christians were not lacking in numbers and in troops, they could have acted as foreign enemies. "We are but of yesterday," he says, "yet we have filled all your cities, islands, fortresses, municipalities, assembly places, the camps themselves, the tribes, the divisions, the palace, the senate, the forum....For what war should we not have been fit and ready even if unequal in forces -- we who are so glad to be cut to pieces -- were it not, of course, that in our doctrine we would have been permitted more to be killed rather than to kill?...If so great a multitude of people should have deserted to some remote spot on earth, it would surely have covered your domination with shame because of the loss of so many citizens, and it would even have punished you by this very desertion. Without a doubt you would have been terrified at your solitude.... You would have sought whom you might rule; more enemies than citizens would have remained for you. Now however you have fewer enemies because of the multitude of Christians."
19. These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes necessarily proceeded from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion. They condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with the unbridled lust for freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion while bringing servitude to the people under the slogan of liberty. Here surely belong the infamous and wild plans of the Waldensians, the Beghards, the Wycliffites, and other such sons of Belial, who were the sores and disgrace of the human race; they often received a richly deserved anathema from the Holy See. For no other reason do experienced deceivers devote their efforts, except so that they, along with Luther, might joyfully deem themselves "free of all." To attain this end more easily and quickly, they undertake with audacity any infamous plan whatever.
20. Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.
21. But for the other painful causes We are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces.
Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979) | John Paul III remain shocked and horrified by such rationalizing against freedom of speech.
Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979) | John Paul II
Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the same words: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free". These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world. Today also, even after two thousand years, we see Christ as the one who brings man freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at its root, in man's soul, his heart and his conscience. What a stupendous confirmation of this has been given and is still being given by those who, thanks to Christ and in Christ, have reached true freedom and have manifested it even in situations of external constraint!
Georges Bataille –
The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.
Ray Bradbury -
They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves
There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
Charles Bradlaugh –
Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.
Louis Brandeis -
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
Charles Bukowski -
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.
Patrick Henry -
It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope and pride. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
Richard King –
Everyone has an opinion, and the guy screaming for censorship may be the next guy to have his ideas cut off.
John Locke -
Truth certainly would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself. She seldom has received and, I fear, never will receive much assistance from the power of great men, to whom she is but rarely known and more rarely welcome. She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force to procure her entrance into the minds of men. Errors, indeed, prevail by the assistance of foreign and borrowed succours. But if Truth makes not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be but the weaker for any borrowed force violence can add to her.
For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men’s opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others. At least, those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom all their own tenets, must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others; and are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other men’s belief, which they themselves have not searched into, nor weighed the arguments of probability, on which they should receive or reject it. Those who have fairly and truly examined, and are thereby got past doubt in all the doctrines they profess and govern themselves by, would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them: but these are so few in number, and find so little reason to be magisterial in their opinions, that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them: and there is reason to think, that, if men were better instructed themselves, they would be less imposing on others.
Lois Lowry -
Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.
John Stuart Mill -
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
Potter Stewart –
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.
Leo Tolstoy -
Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.
I do not think that censorship will work in my favor.Yeah, and what makes you think censorship will work in your favor?
I do not believe that my brain won't be the first to get cut off when the altar of censorship is erected. Perhaps the Lord calls you and me to Martyrdom. We do not yet know.What makes you believe, despite the several millennia of evidence otherwise, that your brain won't be the first to get cut off when the altar of censorship is erected?
I do not think that censorship will work in my favor.
I do not believe that my brain won't be the first to get cut off when the altar of censorship is erected.
Perhaps the Lord calls you and me to Martyrdom. We do not yet know.
Sorry. I do not believe that responding to the above would be a productive use of my time. My views on the matter are already reflected in the information that I posted above. Have a nice weekend.Well that's a first. More precisely, what makes you think it will work with your cause?
You should ask those that have died for merely voicing their concerns against Stalin and Hitler. Every self-proclaimed benevolent cause for the restriction of liberty has been exactly what they say... restriction of liberty.
You'll be a footnote in history as to why censorship is evil and I wouldn't call that martyrdom in your case (but more like getting what you've asked for). As for me? I've already (medically) died once or twice already, and I have zero interest in martyrdom. If he wants me to die a martyr, he can do that, but I fully admit I will drag my feet no less against it. Furthermore, an old saying comes to mind: death is easy; living is hard.
(And, now that I think about it, considering death easier, I should posit this: are you willing to kill for your view? For living with the knowledge you've taken life is far harder than any martyrdom as well.)
Countries that value and legally support fredom of speech, are also supporting the same speech that fostered the jewish holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Is freedom of speech open to unacceptable abuse and should it have limits?
Im not so sure. Take a micro-example of a child being bullied at school by constant verbal taunting. If freedom of speech truly existed you would be wrong to prevent that person from verbally bullying because they have the right to express themselves even when you disagree with it..... but thats not what happens is itWe live in a democracy, and our civic ethos reflects our free values. For our nation to truly live up to democratic values, we must accept its core tenets such as freedom of the press, freedom of association, and free speech.
I agree that it feels uneasy to give bad people like white nationalists, Holocaust deniers, and other extremists their rights to free speech. But the nature of democracy is to ensure freedom for everyone, including people you don’t like.
Consider this. The worst dictators in world history all agreed with free speech they liked, but they didn’t allow speech they didn’t like. To be a true believer in free speech, you must support the everyone’s right to express their views, no matter how much you despise them.
You suggest that allowing extremists like neo-Nazis to express their views could lead to something like the Holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide. But I disagree. Every democratic nation has laws that would prevent things like that from happening. For example, if a group of white nationalists hold anti-Jewish rallies and then do something horrible like burn a Synagogue, they will all go to prison. Allowing bad people their right to free speech won't lead to the end of the world.
I do not think that censorship will work in my favor.
I do not believe that my brain won't be the first to get cut off when the altar of censorship is erected. Perhaps the Lord calls you and me to Martyrdom. We do not yet know.
This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine. "We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it.
Im not so sure. Take a micro-example of a child being bullied at school by constant verbal taunting. If freedom of speech truly existed you would be wrong to prevent that person from verbally bullying because they have the right to express themselves even when you disagree with it..... but thats not what happens is it
Don't you think children need to be treated differently than adults, I do.I accept what you say.... but take it from the extreme and narrow it.... a boy at school ridiculed daily by his teacher or classmates. When you are the person or group subjected to hate speech it has damaging effects... should society allow that in the name of free speech
Both cause harm... and remember this was only an example. My view is that allowing total freedom of speech is in fact a fallacy because we recognize we have a larger obligation to protect society from those that would seek harm on individuals.... whether in a school, or at a propganda level sprouting genocide.Bullying and harassment at school isn't the same thing as expressing the view that Jews control the world from behind the scenes and manipulate everyone into serving their interests. The former is a violation of someone else's rights and causes harm, and the latter is a nutty conspiracy theory that only white nationalists believe and doesn't cause any harm.
Both cause harm... and remember this was only an example. My view is that allowing total freedom of speech is in fact a fallacy because we recognize we have a larger obligation to protect society from those that would seek harm on individuals.... whether in a school, or at a propganda level sprouting genocide.
Both cause harm... and remember this was only an example. My view is that allowing total freedom of speech is in fact a fallacy because we recognize we have a larger obligation to protect society from those that would seek harm on individuals.... whether in a school, or at a propganda level sprouting genocide.
Yes and at what point would you stop speech. Right now in many countries there is a push back against political correctness. I always saw PC as being polite and unoffensive and tolerant. Anti PC people say they want to say what's on their mind.... but shoukd they
There is a reason why the land of the free is not the same thing as the land where there are no laws. The freedoms that we have can be abused, so they come with the obligation to use them responsibly in a way that does not harm others or hinder their freedoms, and laws are there to help instruct us how to do this and to help ensure that we live accordingly. So true freedom is not the freedom to do what whatever we want, but rather it is the freedom to do what we ought. The freedom of speech like every other freedom can be abused, which is why their are laws that govern its use, such as the prohibition against falsely shouting "Fire!" in a theater. However, the issue of what sort of speech causes harm is not always black and white and laws that are intended to protect our freedoms can actually end up diminishing them.
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