Freedom of Speech Quotes and commentary



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





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


Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.
Chief Joseph

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (poet 1919)


The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.
George Orwell

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.
George Orwell

Free speech is my right to say what you don't want to hear.
George Orwell

~ Travis Dorman
Knoxville News Sentinel

Originally Posted by saltwn "Free speech isn't a free pass for insurrection." ~ Travis Dorman Knoxville News Sentinel

Originally Posted by Manitou Only insurrection is an act, and not a thought or spoken word. If I tell you to sit on a cactus, and you do it, who is the dumb ass?

Originally Posted by saltwn I can't spend all day Mansplaining to the Man i tou. You'll just have to look it up. And please post your own quotes. This isn't really a debate thread. thax

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.

......

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.
It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.


......


A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups
start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.

......

A function of free speech under our system of government
is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it
invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as
they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative
and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and
have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea.

......

The challenge to our liberties comes frequently not from
those who consciously seek to destroy our system of government,
but from men of goodwill - good men who allow their proper concerns
to blind them to the fact that
what they propose to accomplish involves an impairment of liberty.


All quotes from William O. Douglas
Supreme Court Justice
April 17, 1939 – November 12, 1975

Edward N. Zalta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/...reedom-speech/

“I know your pain, I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now, we have to have peace, we have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So, go home. We love you, you’re very special. You’ve seen what happens, you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.”

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-new...-capitol-riot/ portions ....If this happened to the Democrats there’d be hell all over the country going on. There’d be hell all over the country. But just remember this, you’re stronger, you’re smarter, you’ve got more going than anybody. And they try to demean everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation, you’re not the people that tore down our nation.... And you have to get your people to fight and if they don’t fight we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight, you primary them. We’re going to let you know who they are. I can already tell you, frankly... ....Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy and after this we are going to walk down and I’ll be there with you, we are going to walk down, we’re going to walk down anyone you want, but I think right here we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voice heard....

.........................

The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.
George Orwell

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy,
a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.
It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it...
Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.
A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press
or in the high-brow periodicals.
George Orwell

"The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries
but between authoritarians and libertarians."
George Orwell

"We have sunk so low it has become the obligation
of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious!"
George Orwell

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell

Originally Posted by mr wonder ... "We have sunk so low it has become the obligation of every decent, thinking individual to re-state the obvious!" George Orwell "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell

Originally Posted by saltwn This.