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https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1568577-freedom-of-speech.
Freedom of Speech is one of the basic human rights in today’s world. Freedom refers, in general terms, to independence. Freedom of speech, hence, is the independence of people to say and express what they feel about certain things, matters, or persons. This freedom is the right for people as well as the source of information and new ideas for them. However, there have been long prevailing debates over the freedom of speech and the extent of this freedom to common men. This paper aims to examine the contrary views on freedom of speech and reach a conclusion based on the argumentative facts. The paper aims to refute all arguments against freedom of speech and provides arguments against any restrictions on freedom of speech in certain countries like Canada.
Freedom of speech provides people with different views about life, political condition, people, education, society, and the whole world. This freedom is not aimed to defame anyone or anything but people provide their deepest thoughts and perceptions about different issues. These varying ideas and opinions provide the uninformed with a wide range of possibilities and sufficient grounds to make their judgment. Hence freedom of speech, in this context, must remain untied with restrictions and laws. The criticism against freedom of speech is the fact that people may use this right to defame other people, develop controversies, and negatively change people’s arguments. The criticizers believe that restrictions must be imposed to protect people’s privacy and reputation from the abusers of this freedom. The justification for their criticism is the increasing debates over political, social, and religious issues. The increasing conflicts and worsening law and order situation provide them with the chance to stand against such freedom.
In my opinion, all these arguments are, to a great extent, baseless. Milton describes in Areopagitica two kinds of people: the prudent ones and others who are imprudent. The prudent class of people can distinguish between good and bad, reasonable and unreasonable; imprudent, on the other hand, is unaffected by any judgments. In other words, we may say that the prudent class has the power to analyze, assess, and judge every event, claim, or argument; whereas, the imprudent do not have their own opinion and they lack the power of expressing and judging. Read More