During my photojournalist class I got to watch a movie called "The People vs Larry Flynt". The movie is basically about a rise of a pornographic magazine publisher and how he became a defender of free speech for all people.
There is a saying in that movie
" I like that I live in the country where I can pick up a magazine and read it if I want to or throw it in a garbage can, if that's where I think it belong and that I can exercise my opinion and not buy it . Because we live in a free country, you know we say that a lot but we forget what that really means, we live in a free country that is a powerful idea and a magnificent way to live. But there is a price for that thing, which is that sometimes we have to tolerate things that we don't necessary believe. If we start throwing up walls against some of the thing you consider obscene, we may very well wake up one day and realize that walls have been gone up in all kinds of places that we never expected and we can't see or do anything and that's not freedom"
To me this statement seemed like an appropriate statement, but in the movie the jury objected to this statement. This made me think that there is no such thing as complete freedom in this world. There can't be because at some point, one person's complete freedom will infringe on another's. We are never "free" from our speech, and certainly not our actions. We are always bound by the consequences that come with the words we choose. So do we really have the freedom of speech?
I think that complete freedom is only idealistic and cannot be supported in reality because like you said it can violate the freedom of another person. As for the freedom of speech, I think that this is not a limitless right. The purpose of the right to freedom of speech is to encourage the spread of diverse ideas. Therefore, I do not think that speech such as fighting words or false commercial speech need to be protected under the right of freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteJimin mentioned about agreeing with larry flint about freedom of speech. I disagree to the extent where all the celebrities who spoke against the government were abdicated and fired from their position in Korean TV channels. Kim Jae dong, Yun Do Hyun and Kim C were all fired because they had their strong political points against the current government. They were all fired because they spoke their opinions and this affected some people.. according to the media and the government. Looking at these incidents, i think there isn't freedom of speech in this world yet.
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