Who Do You Trust?

While researching my AFP/CFP commentary titled “It Is Really This Simple,” I was shocked to my very core to find out that more than half (53%) of the American public that was polled favored limiting free speech. 

Clearly, there is a void in the American indoctrination system (formerly education system) regarding the importance of free speech when it comes to individual liberty. 

Consider these thoughts by people far wiser than me:

"The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought." ~ George Soros

"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"… when the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." ~ George Washington

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." ~ George Orwell

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage." ~ Winston Churchill

"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." ~ Frederick Douglass

"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril." ~ Harry S. Truman

"I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking." ~ Woodrow Wilson

"Freedom of speech means nothing to a people who are too weak in their convictions to speak out against the evil that is eating at the heart of the nation like a cancer." ~ Billy Graham

"The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind." ~ Mike Godwin

"Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection." ~ Neal Boortz

" Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people." ~ Brad Thor

"Abuses of the freedom of speech ought to be repressed, but to whom are we to commit the power of doing it?" ~ Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin identifies the basic problem: Who do you trust to be the arbiter of what speech should or should not be permitted?

"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." ~ John F. Kennedy

In my mind, the 53% of the people that seem to want limited free speech were enjoying President Kennedy’s comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Without free speech there will be no liberty.