Speech: Fill & Download for Free

“Where do you draw the line between free speech and hate speech? If free speech is what we want, then is it alright if my speech would hurt a few people's feelings? If I'm restrained from expressing my opinion, what happened to my freedom of speech?”At what point? At no point.As I’ve said many times now on Quora—the right of the Nazis to march through Skokie is the price we pay to ensure that Martin Luther King, Jr. can march through D.C.Determining what is “hate speech” depends entirely on what values the dominant societal ideology approves of. To a “progressive” society, “Homosexuality is sinful” might be hate speech, but to a strongly religious society, “Faith in God is irrational” might be hate speech.Even if you only defined “hate speech” to include outright slurs, that would only delay the problem, not eliminate it—because polite terms become considered as slurs when their target group gets more sensitive to them (for example, “Negro” used to be a completely neutral term for a black person, but now it’s considered a milder version of “the N-word”, and “cripple” used to be an entirely neutral term for someone without full use of his or her legs, but now it’s considered an “ableist” slur).The point is that no matter how you phrase it, eventually any “hate speech” restriction will morph into a rule that socially unpopular views cannot be expressed—and what is “socially unpopular” might shift dramatically. A law intended to prohibit racist statements could one day be used to prosecute people for “disparaging” speech against the “obvious truth” that whites are superior. A law intended to prohibit homophobic slurs could one day be used to prosecute a gay person for “offensively and outrageously” disparaging the theology of the Westboro Baptists.Free speech means nothing at all unless it is broad enough to encompass speech that causes offense, because speech which doesn’t cause offense doesn’t need protecting (because no one is trying to restrict it).“Hate speech” is free speech.

All people in China believe that correct information is more important than freedom of speech because, without correct information, no speech can be useful or reliable.All people in China believe that responsible speech is more important than ‘free’ speech, since ‘free’ speech includes destructive lies and misinformation.All people in China believe that the right to speak belongs to those who have responsibility for the subject they wish to speak about. Those with no responsibility have no inherent right to speak publicly (of course, they are free to speak as they wish among family and friends).The Chinese value responsible speech over ‘free’ speech and their Constitution reflects this.

Obama did not wait until the speech before he read it. Even those written by others, as most were, had a review period from the president where he practiced the speech and made corrections so that it would sound more natural. By the time he gave the speech, the teleprompter was only there to remind him of what to say.Trump hates to read and does not participate in crafting speeches. So when he does have to give one, he reads it like a sixth grader reading from a history textbook.