Free Speech

I am surprised at the amount of support these Paris Journos are getting; these world leaders, who in their own countries have used all the wrong means to suppress free speech, marching up, giving statements supporting freedom of speech; then that huge rally yesterday and then all the footage on TV, amazing! All this for a bunch of guys whose parents didn’t teach them how to respect others sensibilities.

 

See, my wife allows me to write whatever crap I want to about her on my blogpost, but would she appreciate me writing something very belittling and demeaning about her even if it was true, just because I have the freedom of expression? My foot she will! From the next day onwards, I would be sleeping with stray cats in the backyard.

 

My best friends allow me to share adult jokes with their wives, even a little bit of flirting is tolerated, but could I go ahead and make an indecent proposal just because we are adults and we all appreciate and propagate freedom of speech? That would be pure catastrophic, do not even imagine the consequences of it!

 

So, how long can anyone or I tolerate someone who thinks otherwise? How long can anyone tolerate someone who has taken up on annoying others under the garb of free speech?

 

For instance, how long can anyone tolerate that annoying fly buzzing around ones ear, making that eerie sound? You can either, draw your blanket over your head and let it go by its job and hope it finds another customer, or you can cover your ear with a plug and let it explore some other open hole, like your nose or open mouth or someplace else. Whatever you choose to, you will soon realize that a fly crawling on your body is more annoying than one buzzing around your ear, and at one point of time, I am sure you will pick up a newspaper roll and whack it flat.    

 

Freedom of speech cannot be absolute. It has to be used cautiously, and with restraint, or else, like Newton once said, every action will have an equal and opposite reaction, and the strength of the reaction will not be based on what you perceived to have conveyed, but on the basis of how your free speech was received.

 

Everyone will retaliate in their own way:

Most people will mumble, grumble and go to sleep, some will get angry and debate, some will write a blog or post a tweet, some will break a furniture or two, someone will instigate people to react, someone who has a strong fist and is in close proximity, will land a punch that breaks your nose, someone who is aggravated and has an axe might even chop your hands off, someone else who has gone wrong in the head and has a gun in his pocket will pull the trigger at you……. then don’t complain.