Friday, February 26, 2010

Freedom of Speech

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.
- Anais Nin

According to me, freedom of speech is an illusion created by the government in order to exploit the masses. In the United States, there is no such thing as freedom of speech. We breed in a controlled environment; like rats in the cage. Throughout our lives we are taught that the first amendment guarantees freedom of speech; but what we don’t know is that this privilege/right applies only to certain situations. For example, we cannot use profanity on high school/college campuses; the search results on Google are filtered as per the government requirements. What this means is that, if I blog about a certain religion, Google will block my blog from its search results. In some cases, the government has the authority to take down an entire website.

I believe that freedom of speech, in whatever form it may be, is one of the most important elements of democracy. Every person has his/her opinion, which according to me should be respected and not just criticized bluntly. Instead of calling someone a nut or a moron, you should give a logical reason for why you think the other person is wrong. Hey, after all, even you have the so called right to freedom of speech; use it.

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