Almost always freedom of speech results in a mitigation which renders disorder unnecessary; almost always, also, prohibition of that freedom merely makes the agitation more dangerous because it drives it underground.
Laski argues that freedom of speech can prevent disorder, while its suppression often exacerbates tensions.
Share
More from Harold J. Laski
The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.
Each age finds that the incidence of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned.
We grant it in religion to deny it in politics; we grant it in politics, to deny it in economic matters.
When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.
Other voices in this conversation
