Freedom of Speech

First of all: WHAT IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

The right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint

definition found in the link below:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=freedom+of+speech&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=dSGaTonkNMXV0QGg-aifBA&sqi=2&ved=0CC8QkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=3a30b17aa51ae08d&biw=1181&bih=605

By understanding what is freedom of speech we can then interpret it. If we would have tried to come to conclusions and opinions about freedom of speech, with a loosely based definition, that doesn´t have absolute clarity, then our thoughts and conclusions, would have been misleading and wouldn´t have been accurate at all. Leaving this blog to be useless, and it would have lost it´s support and its level of writing and thought.

Now with this definition we can try to reach conclusions which can both be acceptable and have a precise train of thought that can be shown.

IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH IMPORTANT?

In my opinion, freedom of speech is extremely important, because it gives us the chance to express ourselves and put our point of views forward.

Without freedom of speech we wouldn´t be able to learn more, we wouldn´t be able to speak freely, and we wouldn´t be able to defend ourselves against others.

Without freedom of speech we wouldn´t be able to represent ourselves in a court of law, we wouldn´t be given a chance to proven innocent, we would be in a society where you wouldn´t be innocent until proven guilty, everyone would just be guilty with no place for the accused to defend themselves, and be able to serve justice. There would be no such word, as justice, without justice what would we be left with?

Would our world live in anarchy and dictatorship? Would we live in a world like 1984 by George Orwell. Being controlled, and monitored every second of our lives?  Would thoughtcrime become a reality, and would our history be manipulated to serve the party´s ideals?

We would be covered by a wall of ignorance for the rest of our lives without freedom of speech. Paranoia would be a common psychological illness amongst the world´s population, stress and constant psychological breakdowns would be recurrent, because people would have to be forced to bottle up their thoughts and feelings with fear.

We would live in a realty where we would be brainwashed, and driven to live our daily lives in fear. The thought of suicide would be a popular thought, but the physical act of taking one´s own life, would be too much for us to handle, every time a person would try to kill himself the fear of doing so would take over you , and you wouldn´t do it.

Without freedom of speech we would be imprisoned by fear in a world which just reserved us to limit and break us down, one by one. This is why freedom of speech is so important.

SHOULD THERE BE LIMITS ON WHAT WE ARE FREE TO SAY?

If society put limits on what we are free to say then there wouldn´t be freedom of speech. 

Besides the problem arises of who would put those limits on society, and what key would those limits be based on. What would we limit, discrimination?

If we chose to limit discrimination, there would have to be a definition to discrimination, and who would define it, because discrimination has many meanings depending on where you come from and where you are.

Although discrimination like racism is wrong in my opinion, limiting freedom of speech is not the solution. Because it gives to much strength to the leader, it gives him the power to say that he will limit your right to protect you from an evil, and therefore, the nation will have characteristics of fascism. Giving the government an unlimited amount of control, allowing it to limit more areas of freedom of speech up to a point where freedom of speech won´t exist anymore.

Limits are the first step to abolishing a freedom and right.

"I dissapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Evelyn Beatrice Hall. DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS?

Yes, I do. Because the day that people stop defending other people`s rights with their lives, is the day that society falls into anarchy.

Everyone should defend the right of everyone else, because the moment that we let other´s be deprived of their rights, is the moment that we turn our backs to humanity and all that is moral. Just because you don´t agree with someone, doesn´t mean you should deprive from saying it. Freedom of speech was created, so that people could express themselves without restraint. Denying someone freedom of speech is like saying they aren´t allowed to talk at all. It is like taking away a part of who they are, and this is why freedom of speech has to be protected at all cost. Fighting for your rights and freedoms, is always an ongoing struggle unfortunately, but it is always better to have fought for your rights and failed, then to have just let things happen without, taking a course of action. The strength of society is defined by its actions, and its will to do.

Many countries censor websites to control what their citizens can and cannot see. IS THIS DANGEROUS?

I believe that this is very dangerous, because this causes the nation to have a shield of ignorance, where the people will never really improve themselves or know what is happening all around the world. They are trapped, in a way, in their government´s reality, and in a way their own. This prison that the state has manufactured, will be broken, the question is when.

Because the people, sooner or later, of these countries will find out that their government which they trusted is keeping secrets from them and that only the people have to be blamed for the governments crimes because, it was the people who put these leaders in power. It is the people who gave them the strength to manufacture the jail, which they inhabit.

This hatred and resentment will be shown when this jail of ignorance will be broken, the power will go to the citizens, all the decisions will go to the people who have felt anguish and feel resented, it will go to emotionally unstable people which will not know what is best for it´s nation since, they have been only taught the ways of incarceration and the shadowing of knowledge. 

Can we trust what we read?

There are millions of newspapers where people read on the events of the world. There are hundreds of websites which are supposed to give a objective narration on the happenings of the world. BUT do they actually do this?

Very few news media actually give us the true objective, and neutral story, but a terrible and monstrous number of them do not. It is because of these newspapers which do not tell the full and neutral story which brainwash and in a way betray us. The vast majority of the people on the planet, think that because they read it in their daily famous newspaper, that everything that is being said is all true and that there is no reason to think that a bais statement is being formed. Many people think that what they are reading is the pure truth and that anything else is suspicious material.

The reason that the vast majority of the world´s population think this, is because the the people think that since the news media has the responsibility to inform us in an objective way, we have to believe them. Why would they not live up to their responsibility? Their famous, accurate and sound formal, and important. BUT what most of us forget is that they are also human, they can commit errors of judgement, they can lie, they can unconsciously send a subliminal opinion to us by the way that they write the news, they can give us a feelings of resentment to the people that are being tried for something. They can let people down just like the rest of us.

Although the journalists are all human, and can let us down, no one expects this to happen. WHY? This is because we suffer over confidence, we think that this piece of text can be precise, just because the newspaper is famous, just because they seem to write elegant and intelligently, because they seem to know what they are talking about, and above all, because they have a responsibility to tell us the truth in an objective manner, so why should they let us down? They are special after all, they are good enough to be hired in a newspaper that has been reporting the events of the world to me for my whole life, so why no trust them.

BUT we often forget the responsibility that we hold, which is to question and form our own opinion, to see and look at other sources, even though they aren´t that famous. We have the responsibility to think about what we are absorbing, and the power that we have when we speak. 

If we narrate a bias statement that we have read, to another person, then already two people hold a potencial weapon that could affect public opinion and that might even have consequences on a governmental level, and this virus just keeps spreading just by a simple sentence.

Some might criticize the power that the media has, and it disappointing us by giving us a subjective and bias text, but we don´t look at the responsibility that we hold, if we read a text that sounds bias or that you might doubt, then you shouldn´t leave it at that, look at other newspapers, research alittle. The power of what you say daily, may lay in what you read daily.

I will give you and example that happened with the newspaper Daily Mail on the case of the murder of Meredith Kercher.

This specific newspaper already had an article on the court denying the appeal for Amanda Knox. When they heard the news that she was guilty, they didn´t even stop to hear the whole thing, they published the story the fastest that they could, so they could be the first news media out with the article, but what use was it to be the first in having published the article if the information wasn´t accurate.

Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito,  was given the appeal, but was guilty of SLANDER NOT MURDER. Therefore she was given the appeal and she was free along with her ex-boyfriend.

Anyone who read this article would have been wrongly informed. Spreading this news would have been a further problem because, this would have passed on the wrong news, diminishing the power of what people would say, and allowing them to form their own opinion on something that did not happen, blinding them with a wall of ignorance.

And this would be all caused because, the newspaper did not honor it´s responsibility, and because we didn´t honor our´s either. If one of the two would have followed what they were responsable for, none of this would have ever happened. 

Reflection on presentations

Reflections

In this Global Perspectives class, besides listening to the views and thoughts of people who presented, which were a valuable contribution to the class. We discussed the states of mind that one person might have when presenting.

As we were discussing this, we came to the conclusion that although everyone  knows what to do in a presentation, and what not to do, the nervous state of mind that a person might experience during this presentation, can cause this individual to forget, or not put forward the entirety of the argument they want to deliver to their audience.


Causing the audience to only receive half of what the presenter really wanted to communicate to them, therefore diminishing the understanding of this person´s knowledge, on the subject. This might not be true, but these kind of occurrences cause this kind of impression.

Finally we came to conclude that an individual which is not in a comfortable situation cannot expose a complete, or a fully planned out message towards its listeners because, not only does one have to present  a concise and thought out point of view without surrendering to the presure of being nervous, and forgeting a part of the point which is esencial, but a person has to manipulate and change the way that he or she will present the information, on the spot while presenting, to interact with the audience.

This in my opinion can only be resolved by presenting many times, to people, and this in turn would make a previously uncomfortable situation, into a comfortable one, where any individual could express themselves freely, without any stress, and without being nervous, therefore giving, all the information that the speaker wanted to put forward, at the same time as they interacted with the group.