The Limits of Freedom of Speech

We celebrate freedom of speech as one of our cherished rights.  But is this freedom without any limits?  Should we be permitted to offend another person’s family, religion, physical traits, and country?  I do not think so.

Events unfolding in front of our eyes in France, Belgium, and Denmark highlight the need for circumspection about the right of free speech.  It is not limitless.  Like all rights we enjoy there are boundaries.  Those boundaries are violated whenever others find our speech offensive, in my view.  Flaunting freedom of speech obscures the  limits set by good manners and in some cases by laws.

Pope Francis reminds us that insulting one’s mother could be met with a slap in the face or worse. So when does speech by one person become an insult to others?  Are free to insult others willy-nilly?  I do not think so.  Should our speech provoke and be offensive to others?  I do not think so. 

A day does not pass that we are not subjected to gruesome pictures of murders of all kinds … drive-bys, mass executions, bombings, ethnic and religious strife, and so on.  There is no end in sight, it seems.  The reporting often seems to distort the causes, the impact, and the suffering.  There appears to be emphasis in reporting who commits these crimes, and not that these crimes are all irreprehensible.

Perhaps one of the most troubling aspects for me is the hypocrisy of society at large.  We are taught to be civil, politically correct, least we offend others who are different in skin color, religious persuasion, gender, age, handicap, and heritage.  We even have laws that prohibit racial, gender, or ethnic slurs, for example, contributing to a hostile workplace. 

Although I am against killing of any kind, the fervor about freedom of speech in Europe leaves me cold.  Some of the cartoons deriding Prophet Muhammad appear to be provocations and incendiary.  Insulting someone else’s religious beliefs, in my view, goes beyond the boundaries of good taste and the political correctness that we proudly promote. 

I am not an apologist for the actions of those who in the name of God commit murders. I am just a by-stander fed up with the carnage I see every night or read about every day.  I say stop insulting other people’s beliefs … have more respect for our differences. 

Freedom of speech does not include diarrhea of the mouth.  I do not see the point of ridiculing someone else beliefs in the name of freedom of speech.  I do not approve of provoking others to commit assaults of any kind.  Do you?