[base698]

I know this isn't the popular opinion in the modern world, but originally free speech was argued to be better than censorship, because even though negative or false ideas are present, these bad ideas can illuminate the truth.

Free speech creates a sort of natural selection of ideas--keeping the herd of ideas stronger.

[fao_]

But in no case was the right of speech lost, merely the right of audience, or rather, of publicity.

[base698]

"Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."