The Cost of Freedom of Speech

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“Protest in streets for more rights …” all around us on the radio, on television, in newspapers we hear of kids, women, and elderly people demanding for “more”. But what exactly is the “more” that they want? Is it more freedom of speech? Is it more freedom to choose their lives and how they are governed? “It is a cry for our voices to be heard they say”, but do they truly understand what the democracy they are demanding means, or is it a yearning for the over romanticized and often glamorized “All-American democratic dream” which grants every person the right to free speech. However, what if all the angry voices of the underprivileged all over the world were to be granted the right to express their demands? Would these voices just create catastrophic turmoil and confusion which shakes stability and peace as we know it? Whether to limit freedom of speech or not has always been a moral dilemma. All around us is a cry for change; voices of people from all walks of life calling for freedom of speech, calling for a say in how they are governed and how they choose to live their lives. What these people don’t understand is that freedom of speech is very ambiguous and can lead to many challenges and misunderstandings; therefore, it should be limited for reasons such as illiteracy, violence, and fragmented nations. Granting freedom of speech to those who do not have the wisdom or ability to use it for positive change is like forcing the deaf to create music. Misused, this freedom of expression can have opposite results; creating confusion and misleading mass populations to vehemence. According to studies conducted by UNESCO throughout the world, the number of illiterate people is about one billion, which is 26% of the world’s adult population. Being ignorant or illiterate bounds a person’s life in many ways; they cannot read menus in restaurants, they cannot carry regular

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