Freedom
of Expression
“Hatred
is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of
enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death
struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block
progress to freedom and democracy.”
Liu
Xiaobo (Nobel Peace Prize, 2010; currently a political prisoner in
China)
When
I first came to Alabama in the 1980's, an organization called The
Eagle Forum, which began in 1976, was in process of getting books
banned from school libraries. Some of our greatest classics were on
the chopping block, including Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mocking
Bird. This group succeeded for a while, but our love of the First
Amendment right to free speech finally prevailed. Did you know that
this attempt at censorship is still going on? Only recently in
Arizona, a school system banned books by Latino authors.
Liu
Xiaobo denounced censorship in the following way: “Free
expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and
the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights,
to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.” His advocacy for
freedom of expression landed him in prison in China, where he still
resides. It is my hope and my prayer that we in America are not
headed in the same direction.
Fear
is the crux of the problem. Fear of losing control over the minds of
our children, losing control of the political process, and bottom
line, losing control of the wealth of this country. Fear, expressed
as hatred, is toxic to freedom on every level: Freedom of thought, of
expression, of dignity and respect, and of basic human rights. We
must not allow our fear of change, and of loss of control, to guide
us as a nation or as individuals, or we will truly have lost any
claim to a moral high ground.
Fear
and hatred are also spiritual toxins. We cannot carry them in our
hearts without becoming mean-spirited, cruel, and indifferent to the needs
of others. They will poison our relationships, and even our souls.
Let us champion our First Amendment right to free speech every bit as
vociferously as we do our Second Amendment right to gun ownership.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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