"FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE"
One of the canonical formulations of the sanctity of the freedom of speech was penned by the celebrated American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, nearly a century ago: “[I]f there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” This is the essence of free expression, and by definition, the paradigm of liberty itself. It is one of the cardinal principles passed on by the Enlightenment and its most distinguished proponents; from Voltaire to Thomas Paine; from James Madison to John Stuart Mill. As George Orwell succinctly put the matter, “If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” This is a simple proposition. Simple, because it inheres the absolute truth that no free society can truly be free once the State imposes conditions on the right to speak based on its “civ