My Thoughts on the Subject of Free Speech

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Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke.
Your body doesn't know the difference.
Words are energy and cast spells, that is why it is called spelling.
Change the way you speak about yourself and you will change your life.
What you're not changing, you are also choosing."

I found the above quote attached to a Bruce Lee photo with him holding up what appears to be a bullet. If Bruce Lee actually came up with these words, that I don't know. I post it because this speaks to this idea of free speech and what is and is not freeing.

  • What does Free Speech mean to you?

Let me answer first address this question as it is typically thought about.

Free speech to most people, and to me for much of my life until only a couple of years ago, means that I have the right to say anything that I want everywhere and anywhere that I want, disregarding who is present or what I am rambling on about, or where I am at in the current moment.

Free Speech to most people means that I can go onto Facebook or some other social media site and type out the most horrible of things when I'm feeling angry and hostile at the world, myself, the roommate, the wife, the bills coming in, etc. with no thought put into what these words will do to those who read them or what it will do to me as the writer or what it will do to the relationships that I have.

Most people think of - Free Speech - in only one way while neglecting that the speech being spoken by a few may not be freeing at all; rather, it binds and limits one to heavier and heavier chains. When that speech begins to bind and limit others, due to its very nature, are you still willing to protect and defend the idea of Free Speech for all when they express themselves everywhere and anywhere they want as they spew forth their binding words?

What is meant by this concept of "free?" Does free have boundaries or is it an infinite space that we can fill? There are people who equate being free with anarchy, claiming that there are no rulers and no rules, while at the head of the snake we find a group of leaders who have given out rules/guidelines/suggestions for what anarchy is and is not to those of us who have "lost our way". What are they free of? Even they have a governing body and rules (they will deny this of course). They live within a boundary, the one they say is the only free way to live.

Just like anarchy (or any and all other systems, concepts/ideas, etc.), Free Speech has boundaries. It has rules that govern it. Going back to the quote at the start of this post, we read that we must choose our words because they carry energy behind them, whether or not you believe this is irrelevant to the fact.

So, Free Speech means to me, at this current stage of my life, is having the ability to speak words that uplift and/or diminish myself and/or others.

But when, where, and in front of whom is a person allowed to express their right of Free Speech are questions that are rarely thought about in light of words having either positive or negative energy behind them.

  • Do you believe Free Speech is worth saving? If yes, why do you believe it is important?

Yes, free speech is worth saving. It must be protected. It is very important that we have those who are brave enough to stand up to tyrannical governments, who are brave enough to call out the injustices they see in the world, who are brave enough to speak their minds even when the entire world is against them in places where they can be heard by small/large amounts of people.

Yes, I'm all for protecting the rights of Free Speech for those who come out about the surveillance state we find our selves in or coming out about the chemtrails found in our skies across the entire span of the globe or coming out about the poisons that can be found in our foods, either by way of spray and/or by way of the toxic shit they put in with the food or the other numerous things that evil people wish to keep hidden in the dark. These people's right to Free Speech, generally, is meant to expose the sugar-coated lies that are being fed to us. That knowledge is freeing when we take the knowledge and put it into practice. In these circumstances, let Free Speech prevail everywhere and anywhere.

Yes, I'm all for letting people speak freely about the good stuff, like love, too. However, ...

No, I'm not for letting people freely speak on any platform they like if their words are meant to control people; if their words are vile and hateful.

No, a person does not have the right to freely speak in front of a crowd, whether it be a small stage or the grand stage, when his words are vile and are meant to enslave the very people that can't psychologically defend themselves. - Have you not seen the outcome of letting tyrants freely speak played out in history on multiply continents over the centuries? (What rock are you under?)

No, a person doesn't have the right to vent anywhere and everywhere they like and see fit.

No, a person doesn't have the right to degrade and demean people anywhere and everywhere they like.

Yes, these "no" examples above have a right to free speech -BUT- in the company of people who are trained professionals and who can defend themselves from the psychological vomit the above people will be spewing from their mouths.

If one feels like they need to vent, there should be a person who is trained in such matters around to truly listen and help guide that venter back to greener pastures. Or, this venter can write out on a piece of paper all the hateful shit that is going through their mind and burn the pages when they are done. Or, they can draw. Or, something else besides posting it on social media where that hateful speech has the potential to spread like a forest wildfire being pushed by the wind on a blistering hot day through the dead and dying trees.

The tyrant has a right to Free Speech in front of people that can psychologically defend themselves, not on a stage speaking to the masses about whatever and getting them to do whatever he wishes them to do.

For those that like to demean and degrade people, they should be working out those issues with a psychologist or someone else in that sort of field. They shouldn't be allowed to post their hatred of another human because they despise their skin color, nationality or whatever. That shit should be removed and dealt with by professionals or else we get more people that hate others simply because of their skin color, nationality, or whatever. (Fact, the U.S. Army and the like have been known to teach their new grunts demeaning and degrading words to use against other people [the supposed enemy] because, when the other side isn't seen as human, the new grunts are better killing machines.)

Don't you see it?

A part of defending Free Speech is also about deciding when, where and in front of whom a person can be free to express himself/herself when taking into account the words that come out of his/her mouth.

This is the type of concept when I think about Free Speech and all that it means to me is what I find worth saving.

I'm pretty sure this will have to be flushed out more in the future. This is what I have to offer at this current stage of my life. Thanks for tuning in and not dropping out.



Steemit/Hive sites I support and/or delegate to.

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Other sites I support

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Facebook - Moving the Streets
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Facebook - Kemetic Aha and Sema Association


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5 comments
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I do agree with you here, free speech shouldn't include hate, but i feel like it is a lot harder to draw the line.

People who hate, and are marginalized for it tend to resent that, and hate more. And from the other side if you discriminate against discriminators, you become one of them. For a long time I believed the only way to enable acceptance in others, was to be fully accepting of them but i'm not so sure. There does need to be a much wider lack of tolerance for hate. It was crazy watching it rise in the UK following brexit. So many of the campaigns normalized it, and i think that's the dangerous part.

Have you not seen the outcome of letting tyrants freely speak played out in history on multiply continents over the centuries?

I do agree with you, but equally the inverse is true, tyrants or rulers suppressing free speech as a way to prevent people coming together against them. It's hard to label exactly what is hate, sometimes it is so overwhelmingly clear, other times it is entirely a matter of perspectives creating conflict that doesn't need to be there, and other times again it can just be nativity.

From the perspective of the tyrant, those trying to over throw are domestic terrorists and breeding hate, and therefore should be hated even more.

I do very much agree that no one has the right to say things with the intention to demean or degrade, enslave or control, but its very hard to correctly identify it. When it is real sincere hate, suppressing it tends not to help, in some ways the person engaging in the hate needs to feel understood before they might be willing to start to understand where someone else is coming from. Professionals can help with that, but it is a very big problem to only be dealt with my therapists, although lol, if this was rolled out it would very much the time to be a therapist, be fully booked and making all the money! Fancy opening a business? lol

That shit should be removed and dealt with by professionals or else we get more people that hate others simply because of their skin color, nationality, or whatever.

In one sense, i am totally with you, but then I don't know, take someone who hates white girls, its not the typical example of hate speech but there is plenty of it out there. They post about how shitty and shallow white girls are, they are generally ignored, they find a few like minded people, and they create an echo chamber where they reinforce each others beliefs and occasionally go after a white girl to demean and degrade. I'm not sure that censoring them online, then forcing them to get therapy is going to change their point of view, or the points of view of the others in the echo chamber who saw that happen. If anything, it could cause it to spiral into new levels of crazy and go past a point of no return in terms of how much they hate and blame which is probably true of some groups referred to as underground terrorist movements. It would feel like the world was siding with the white girl - or whoever they hated, and could well push them to feel the need to justify their hate to others all the more.

People need to be given a way out of the corners they back themselves into, and I don't know what they best way to do that for people who hate based on things like skin color and gender.

It's a problem that affects nearly every society, and needs addressing at it's core. I feel like one day, they will teach small kids in school about human evolution and development, and they will learn that humans used to divide ourselves based on things, like skin color, birth place, sexual attraction, but we moved past that, and by not seeing people for anything other than them, we were able to advance as a species. They can learn all about every kind of hate as one thing and how humanity has grown past it. I do feel teaching individual hate probably makes it seem more real, learning about racism the way it as taught, which is more matter of fact this happened, people believed those of different skin colors were sub human and bought and sold them, it doesn't necessarily equip a child with the understanding. The same goes for teaching at a different point, about sexuality. I don't know, but i feel like teaching it as one big bundle of humans used to split themselves up based on all these things and it was all wrong, makes it harder for someone to embrace just one bit of the hate. If it was all taught as one big bundle, most people would fit into one of the categories hated at some point, and by identifying with one, they'd be more able to empathize with all of the others, understanding there is no difference in discriminating based on anything, it's all wrong.

That doesn't do much for the now, and a program where instead of just reporting hate and it being removed, but the person being given the opportunity to develop past that hate, would be a boat load better than what we have right now.

Generally there is a fair amount of social change following an epidemic, so you never know, we can hope that on the other side of this, we find ourselves better united, and less likely to let hate spread its roots without engaging in conversation and understanding before it has chance to take hold. I hope that's not too much of an essay haha, it's your fault, you wrote a really engaging post ;)

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I'm doing this right before bed. lol.

I agree with what you said in the first paragraph. We need a way to get out our hate so that it doesn't build up inside of us and fester. There are people who can handle this sort of talk and there are those who can't. There are though who get sucked into such hate and those who are repulsed by it to the point that they too begin to hate. Usually, going online and venting isn't going to solve the issue, as one article says.

I've ranted before. It worked once or twice but all of the other times it has been very bad for my well being and it has served to isolate me even more than I am.

tyrants or rulers suppressing free speech as a way to prevent people coming together against them.

This is not the type of Free Speech that I ever what to see blocked, never. I did address this further on down the line.

It's hard to label exactly what is hate, sometimes it is so overwhelmingly clear, other times it is entirely a matter of perspectives creating conflict that doesn't need to be there, and other times again it can just be nativity.

Sometimes, yes, it can be very difficult to discern what exactly is hate speech. I think it would be easier if we grew up knowing that words have power behind them and that words in themselves have different energies attached to them. Most of us in the Western cultures of today are not aware of this simple fact that the ancients knew, which makes it even more difficult to discern between love/neutral/hate speech.

When it is real sincere hate, suppressing it tends not to help...

I agree. Yes, you and I could open up a practice. We'll teach people about Cuthulu and the other wonderful creatures. lol


I'm going to leave it here for the night and address this tomorrow. Mostly I'm in agreement with you. I think the extra talk is nice because I've not had someone write something as engaging and long as you have here. It is nice. I posted this on uptrennd and I got a few people who left a sentence, even a couple of sentences.

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Please use tags that describe your post. The "hive" tag should only be used for posts that are specific to hive, which this post is not. Please remove the "hive" tag and use only when appropriate.

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