Do we really need free speech? Lots of people are asking that question nowadays. Certainly conservatives aren’t, but a lot of other people are beginning to wonder if free speech is all that it’s cracked up to be. And the tyrannical left is waging an absolute war against free speech, especially that which contradicts their lies. In the video below, Chris Widener, founder of PolitiCrossing and the President of the American Freedom Tour, explains just why important free speech is. Watch below.
How bad is the problem? Read what Greg Lukianoff says for Prager U:
“Freedom of speech. The ability to express yourself. It’s a cherished idea — as well it should be. Most of us who live in liberal Western democracies think of it as a basic human right. People have fought and died for it. But now we may be in danger of losing it.
The threat is not coming from without — from external enemies — but from within. A generation is being raised not to believe in freedom OF speech, but rather that they should have freedom FROM speech — from speech they dislike. This is a threat to both pluralism and democracy itself.
We see this in Europe where “sensitivity-based” censorship attempts to ban anything deemed hateful or even just hurtful, and to ban criticism of religion, especially Islam.But the United States, despite its strong Constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights is far from immune from the rising trend of suppression of speech, or what is sometimes called political correctness. This is especially true at America’s colleges and universities, the place where our future leaders are educated and where you’d expect speech to be the most free.
Highly restrictive speech codes are now the norm on campuses, not the exception. According to a study by my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — FIRE — 54% of public universities and 59% of private universities impose politically correct speech codes on their students. And thanks to recent Department of Education guidelines 100% of colleges may adopt speech codes in the coming years.”
