Why speech should be free

Put two people together long enough and you’ll get a disagreement.  Keep them together a bit longer and you’ll get a major disagreement.  Extend that forced cohabitation for too long and you’ll get opposing political parties.

Most people can, however, learn to live with the idea that not everyone is going to agree with everything they say.  But there are exceptions to this rule.  For instance, on the facebook, I’ve noticed some people cannot pass by posts that contain statements contrary to their core beliefs without a negative comment.  (And I’ve been guilty of this offense myself.)    It’s as though these people have set themselves up as arbiters of what’s acceptable and what isn’t. 

You can react to this in one of two ways.  You can reply to your detractor and in all likelihood get a long and pointless argument started, or you can use a handy little device facebook has installed for the original poster and that is an x that will magically appear to the side of each comment.  Click on that x and that comment will be deleted.

Oh, don’t worry.  It’s not like you’re suppressing the right to free speech.  Those who have other thoughts on any matter can always post whatever they want to on their facebook page.

In real life, dissent is not always welcomed, either.  Those who have the power to do so will often attempt to stifle viewpoints not totally in line with what they consider acceptable.   But suppression of the free exchange of ideas can sometimes be a costly mistake. 

In the former Soviet Union, dissent was not only unwelcomed; it usually carried a prison sentence. But can you imagine how different the Chernobyl area might be today if someone had had to defend the decision to put an uncontained nuclear reactor in one of the few places in that country that had arable farmland?

And in an article that appeared on MSN’s web site in the week leading up to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the writer put the cost of the Iraq war in the trillions of dollars.  There were those who spoke out against the then-impending war, but who, like the Dixie Chicks, were browbeaten into silence.

In our area, anyone who opposes mountaintop removal (MTR) as a method for extracting coal knows what it’s like to have their right to free speech threatened.  One of the more blatant attempts at bullying opponents of MTR into silence is the bumper sticker that suggests one way to protect the coal industry is by shooting “tree huggers”.

Using the term “tree huggers” is one way to dehumanize those who see MTR as a destructive and harmful practice.  Other ways include the terms “radical environmentalists, outside agitators”, etc. to describe local residents.

 Then there are those who aren’t above physically threatening or attacking opponents of MTR.  An extreme example of this can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjc7Jg_gMy0.

There is a price to be paid when MTR is allowed to go unchecked.  The topography of our area is such that without the protection afforded by the trees on the hillsides, excess rain can quickly turn creeks into raging rivers.

 Anyone who saw Harless Creek after that flood of 2010 cannot deny the truth of this:  Silence can be deadly at times.