With varying opinions and beliefs, our society needs to have unlimited freedom to speak about any and everything that concerns us in order to continually improve our society. Those free speech variables would be speech that creates a positive, and not negative, scenario in both long-terms and short-terms. Dictionary defines Freedom of Speech as, “the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc.” Freedom of speech is also known as free speech or freedom of expression. Freedom of speech is also known as freedom of expression because a person’s beliefs and thoughts can also be expressed in other ways other than speech. These ways could be art, writings, songs, and other forms of expression. If speaking freely and expressing ourselves freely is supposed to be without any consequence, then why are there constant law suits and consequences for people who do. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression should be exactly what they mean.
Freedom of speech is arguably the most precious gift of democracy. Democracy nurtures freedom of speech of its citizens. Citizens, in turn, safeguard democracy by voicing their protest against each and every violation of democratic rights of people. Evolution of democracy is nothing but a history of the extension of the right of freedom of speech from the limited group of privileged citizens to the universal right of every citizen granted by democratic regimes of the world. One wonders as to what would have been the course of history of many countries in the world, had freedom of speech been completely denied to their inhabitants.
One celebrated instance of freedom of speech and its historical outcome is forcefully described by Shakespeare in his drama “Julius Caesar”. After the murder of Julius Caesar, some leading lights of Rome assembled at a place to offer justification for assassination of Caesar. Caesar, according to them, had become a threat to the freedom of Romans. Freedom of speech if followed in its true essence i.e the right to free speech , the right to raise ones voice and opinion against injustice , but sadly these days freedom of speech has become just another excuse for phenomena’s like blasphemy and hate literature . The human race needs to understand the fact that with great power comes great responsibility.