There are very few things I think would happen in life. One of the things I thought least likely to happen was me agreeing with a Republican majority vote. However, truth can be stranger than fiction sometimes.
House Bill 1305 passed with a 206-169 vote with Republicans mostly in favor. The bill would ensure free speech on college campuses, which would be incredible. You can not legally get in trouble for anything you say unless it is a call to violence, but the protection should be extended to colleges.
It is more important than ever to make sure free speech is protected. People might get angry with things others might say and sometimes that is more than justified. However, banning opinions, even the most heinous, is a slippery slope to anything that could be considered controversial to be banned. I take the South Park approach to free speech: either all of it is OK, or none of it is.
According to the Keene Sentinel, “The bill also says colleges are entitled to set restrictions against behavior that constitutes harassment or seeks to provoke lawlessness. They could also set reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of free speech activities under the legislation.”
This is good as well and does not contradict free speech at all. The First Amendment already does not allow speech that will directly lead to violence. Stochastic terrorism should never be tolerated. In fact this is exactly why we need free speech in the first place. We need to protect ourselves from bullies who do not want others to have a voice and will use violence to restrict speech. Stochastic terrorists are cowards who will not use violence themselves, but will call others to be violent for a cause.
Ideas should be able to spread through open debate. I do not believe any topic should be considered too sacred to criticize. Good ideas will shine through and bad ideas will be obvious. Bad ideas can only be spread by violence or disinformation which I believe should be the restrictions to free speech, if you can even call them restrictions. What is true should shine for society to see and these ideas should be passed down. When a bad idea is passed down future generations will be able to see it is bad and act accordingly.
Treating any idea as sacred is dangerous. Even if what you are treating as sacred is fundamentally a great idea it is still wrong to ban opposing views. For example, I hate the anti-vaccination movement, but it would be detrimental to ban anti-vaccination ideas. Banning ideas like that will only reinforce the horrible thoughts in people’s minds making them think they are onto something. The anti-vaccination movement can only be spread by misinformation and disinformation. That is where the route of restrictions should lie, not in the idea itself.
I am glad to attend a college like Keene State College which already values free speech. A few months ago college President Melinda Treadwell sent The Equinox a letter to the editor promoting freedom of speech. I thought Treadwell’s letter was wonderful as it shows how importantly Keene State College and The Equinox take the freedom of speech.
Nico Brazill can be contacted at
nbrazill@kscequinox.com
