Writer's Block: First Amendment

[mlknchz]

[Error: unknown template qotd]The dissemination of ideas is what keeps a person, and a society, free. Just as courage is "rightly esteemed as first of  human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all others", so freedom of speech is the first of personal freedoms.
But freedom of speech is NOT just the freedom to speak, it is the freedom to HEAR; to hear the voice raised against injustice, to hear the cry of the soul in bondage, to hear the words of those who fight oppression with truth.

It is the ability to say "I matter" and have that statement be true.

And it is endowed to us from our Creator by our mere existence; no government, no leader, no court grants it to us. It always HAS, and will always BE our birthright as human beings.

Comments

[dystempted.livejournal.com]

Very well-said. I hope you share this elsewhere too.

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

You can re-post if you like...thanks :)

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

Am glad my parents fled a tyranny to promote it.

Also,
I am a great talker so if I couldn´t, it would be disastrous for me personally.
But you are so very right on the hearing part... Listening is far better and I sometimes do. You learn a lot, about all kinds of things, then.

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

That's why you have two ears, but only one mouth :)

[glazomaniac.livejournal.com]

my answer would be fairly self-centered: it's because most of my opinions are unpopular in a wide american audience.

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

And as such, vitally needed

[glazomaniac.livejournal.com]

if i'm the first against the wall, i'll cherish the prominence of my position.

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

I remember reading somewhere;
"If everyone in the world but a sinlge person held the same opinion, then the majority would be no more right in silencing that single person than that person would be - if they had the power to do so - in silencing the rest of the world."
Or words to that effect