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Free Speech Archive

Friday

9

January 2015

2

COMMENTS

#JeSuisCharlie Won’t Save Free Speech

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The horrific attacks on Charlie Hebdo  have brought forth a defence of free expression from politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens. But the outpouring of support is an exception in a broader pattern of events. The French President tries to call for a national unity that seems little more than a distant memory. Satirists across Europe convey their shock and grief – but everyone is rightfully nervous about republishing the Muhammad cartoons which put Charlie Hebdo on the radical Islamist death list. As Foreign Policy magazine and Reason.com have both pointed out, we are not all Charlie Hebdo, and not a few Western outlets […]

Friday

3

October 2014

5

COMMENTS

Devil’s Game: Free Speech and the Entryist Strategy

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“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That phrase contains all the hope and promise of political freedom of speech. One pictures intellectuals and workingmen alike discussing ideas unhindered. There is no idea so sacred, no value so widely held, that it is beyond critique. Without the power of the state guarding some official truth, only reason and logic can test their strength. That’s the theory, anyway. But the theory and the real history of free speech are very different. The modern era institutionalized free speech as a safeguard, […]