Right Of Free Speech example essay topic

Erin Lowe- also author of many 'outstanding' American History essays... of which two are published somewhere here... one about Peter Noyes, and another about Mercantilism... 'Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail...

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. ' The only way that the ideas of this world that are deemed bad are going to go away is if we are allowed to see them and change them.

If we are not allowed to see what is 'bad' then our society will never grow to become a better place. What censorship does is keep us protected; leaving us living sheltered lives. If we never see a racist comment how are we to know that racism is bad? At the same time Censorship can be a good thing because it keeps children from seeing pornography, and terrible acts of violence. However censorship should not keep anyone from seeing literature, even if it is considered slightly explicit in a sexual, racial, or violent manner. Censorship should leave the ideas of people alone and leave them with their first amendment rights.

Amendment one of the United States Bill of Rights reads 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble... '. What this means is that we, in America have the right to be any religion, and to not have that religion forced upon us. We have the right to say what we want and to publish our ideas if we so wish, and to read the ideas that others have published. We can also peaceably assemble, or gather in protest without violence what we think is wrong. The biggest right that we have is that of free speech and press.

We can say what we want! As American sometimes we take this for granted. However even though we have the right to free speech we have to draw the line somewhere, but where? 'We so often condemn books that were written to fight the very things that we claim to be fighting. ' This quote illustrates one of the things that are so wrong with censorship. We seem to ban or censor books, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that are actually against racism or whatever the objection to the book is.

When a book is taken the wrong way it is simply the fault of the reader, and not the book. The book therefore cannot be censored in this case. To override the right of free speech on the grounds that the speech in question is likely to harm or offend others is to commit an act of censorship. Not all censorship of this manner is unjustified however, for some speech causes significant and direct harm to others, such as maliciously defaming speech, and speech which opens national secrets to 'enemies'. There should be however a presumption that all speech is protected from censorship in that the censor always has to prove and to persuade the people that the speech is bad. In this way it is using new and better ideas to eliminate the bad ideas.

The speaker should not have to prove every time that an individual challenges his / her speech that it really is good. The proof has to be that whatever harm or offense the speech has caused is significant, and direct. Free speech is a valuable thing, and should not be restricted by its remote or superficially adverse affect on others. 'Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech that denial of free speech.

The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life f the people, and entombs the hope of the race' This quote had an excellent point in the case against censorship. To discover new ideas and the truth of life we need to be exposed to new thoughts, and different thoughts. If we always saw the same thoughts over and over we could never expand; we could never become better as a society without new ideas. If new ideas cannot be written or seen then their discovery is useless, for they cannot help without being seen. SO it is better that we see cases in which free speech is used in a bad way, such as in defaming specific people or groups or ideas, than to have no free speech at all as a result of free censorship.

Defaming something that should not be defamed can be recovered from, for good things will be supported more than gone against. Also, things that need to be obliterated from society will be by this right of free speech. The denial of free speech will smother the life of a society. A society where different ideas aren't all owed will soon fail. However there is no right to harm or to offend other people. If an idea in a book is explicitly insulting a particular group or person it could be censored, depending on the type of offense.

If, for example a book says that African Americans are all stupid, simple, and should be killed off for this fact the book should only be read by choice, and not be forced upon anyone. An adult is capable of making a choice not to read, or allow their child to read a book that is expressly offensive to them. People always seem to be not concerned with what they read, but with what other people read. Quite often it is a white person that bans a book for fear that it might insult an African American, or a male, thinking that it might insult a female. 'Did you ever hear anyone say 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might me very damaging to me'?' People should really only censor for themselves, and they should be allowed to censor for themselves. 'The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean' This statement is in many cases true.

Small children should not be exposed to pornography, or to extreme violence, for their developing minds are very impressionable. However they can be exposed to a wide variety of ideas, so that as they grow older they can decide for themselves what and who they want to be. If they are exposed to racist ideas, it is very likely that they will also be exposed to anti-racist ideas, leaving their mind still undecided. If children are exposed to minor sexuality then it will leave them having a much easier time accepting themselves when they become young adults, and then adults. The things that are put into the minds of the young will never leave them, and so in some cases censorship is necessary. Many books are censored for reasons of sex, violence, the occult, racism, or for having 'rebellious children' in them.

Most common are the racism, and sex reasons. Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut is an example of a book banned for these reasons. The book is a collection of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut and the title is the same as the title of one of the stories. These stories include 'Welcome to the Monkey House', 'All the King's Horses', 'Who am I This Time?', 'More Stately Mansions', 'The Foster portfolio', and 'The Kid Nobody Could Handle' along with many others. Those listed however seemed the most likely to be banned out of the book. Kurt Vonnegut is well known as a pessimistic writer, whose topic usually is the future.

He wrote these for mass produced and distributed magazines. They therefore are rather conventional, both thematically, and technically. Through these stories you can see some of the information about Vonnegut himself. He is the product of an Indianapolis middle class family. Many of the stories also show Vonnegut's and America's preoccupation with the Cold War, love, status, and identity. The first story, 'Welcome to the Monkey House' a future society is described in America where a scientist had invented and ethical birth- control pill that removes all pleasure from sex, and the government requires al women and men to take them.

'The pills are ethical because they didn't interfere with a person's ability to reproduce, which would have been unnatural and immoral, all the pills did was take every bit of pleasure out of sex. Thus did science and morals go hand in hand' The hero of this story is a very short, funny looking man who calls himself Billy the Poet. He seduces the suicide hostesses, whose job it is to help people commit suicide painlessly and effectively, whenever they want in a pleasurable way. In this case he dresses up as an old man who wants to commit suicide.

When he seduces these women, always at gunpoint he forces them to abandon their ethical birth control pills. 'The people who understood science said that people had to quit reproducing.