{"id":881,"date":"2006-03-21T07:31:43","date_gmt":"2006-03-21T12:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/free-speech-is-a-choice\/"},"modified":"2006-03-21T07:31:43","modified_gmt":"2006-03-21T12:31:43","slug":"free-speech-is-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/free-speech-is-a-choice","title":{"rendered":"Free Speech is a Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Stoppard on the subject<\/a> of the “inalienable right” of free speech:<\/p>\n

A “human right” is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times. But the whole parcel of liberties into which free expression fits has a history. To St Augustine, religious tolerance would have been an oxymoron. The concept of pluralism as a virtue is a thousand years more modern than St Augustine. To say, therefore, that the right of free speech was always a human right which in unenlightened societies was suspended from the year dot until our enlightened times is surely beyond even our capacity for condescension.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Stoppard on the subject of the “inalienable right” of free speech: A “human right” is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times. But the whole parcel of liberties into which free expression fits has a history. To St Augustine, religious tolerance … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Free Speech is a Choice”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-ed","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/reponses","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":0},"title":"Reponses","author":"Gil","date":"February 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"By next week, I hope to get a \"comments\" function added to VM. Until then, I'll post any e-mailed responses people have to the blog. This one comes from someone I don't know. One of my coworkers has forwarded my Passion Play to some people, and it's begun meme-ing around:Mel\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14805,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-458-robert-emmet-meagher","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":1},"title":"Episode 458 – Robert Emmet Meagher","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2021","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 458: Robert Emmet Meagher \"As I grew as a thinker, as a scholar, as a teacher, I took Camus with me, and my appreciation of him grew as I did.\" With Albert Camus and the Human Crisis (Pegasus Books), professor Robert Emmet Meagher distills a half-century of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/meaghercomp.jpg?fit=1145%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":156,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/now-get-back-to-work","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":2},"title":"Now Get Back To Work!","author":"Gil","date":"March 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a 2003 graduation speech by the president of Principia College. It's about how busyness keeps us from truly living. Now, because the college is affiliated with Christian Scientists, the tenets of that faith really fill up the second half of the speech.Still, it's got a lot of good points\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":821,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/821","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":3},"title":"Get Smart","author":"Gil","date":"January 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I attended the Graduate Institute at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD from 1993-1995. At the end of that period, I was awarded a Master of Arts, Liberal Arts degree (we nicknamed it the evil Spanish woman degree, or M.A.L.A.). During four different job interviews (between 1995 and 1997), the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4243,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-b-s-report","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":4},"title":"The B.S. Report","author":"Gil","date":"July 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm too giddy with anticipation of Rickey Henderson's Hall of Fame induction speech to do any real blogging this weekend, dear readers! I know it's too much to hope that he'll deliver his speech in the third person, but chances are it'll be a memorable speech (not as awesome as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679600728","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-honorary-awards","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":5},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of honorary awards","author":"Gil","date":"June 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of Father's Day, I thought Of the affection of fathers for their children would offer up some good material. As it turns out, M. uses most of the essay to argue that elderly men should know when it's time to withdraw from worldly affairs, then concludes that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}