Free speech is the best way to express your idea if you are dissatisfied with a policy or want to make a suggestion to improve it. Free speech is the basic tool for sharing ideas and beliefs. Free speech allows people to express their ideas freely and without any fright. However, everything has its two sides to it, and free speech also could be insensitive and offensive. Some people believe we should prohibit free speech or censor it to avoid anything which might not be at least polite. Nevertheless, according to the article "Protecting Freedom of Expression at Harvard" and "A Curse and Blessing", Derek Bok and Milena Ateya both believe that everything expressed with the right for the freedom of speech affects other people. Instead of introdusing codes and restrict the right to free speech, we should ignore inappropriate communications or talk to the people who produce it in order to put an end to it (118). Bok and Ateya's idea is right, although some free speeches are insensitive and offensive, society should accept them.
The right to free speech is inviolable, even if it is rude and inappropriate. In the article, Bok talks about Harvard students who hand confederate flags and students who display a Swastika. Both of these cases can be rather offensive to the public. Nevertheless, people could not prohibit such behaviors just because they don’t agree with it (118). The actions of Harvard students might hurt other people's feeling; however, they are a form of free speech. Those three students are simply using their right to express their own ideas. We cannot prohibit their actions depending on how people think about them, because the it is their right to express whatever they wish. According to the article, Bok also claims that "the display of swastikas or Confederate flags clearly falls within the protection of the free speech clause of the First Amendment and cannot be forbidden simply because it offends the feelings of many members of the community" (119). The law also says that insensitively and offensive free speech is allowed to exist in society and we cannot forbid it because it offends someone else. The law is the law and it is every person’s right to act according to it. We can not prohibit the insensitively and offensively of free speech even if some may disagree with it.
There is no effective way to prohibit free speech that offends others. According to the article Bok states that it is very hard to decide whether a specific communication is offensive enough to be prohibited (119). We can censor every free speech before they take place; however, there is no good standard to evaluate whether the speech is offensive or not since people react differently to different sayings and words. We don't have effective and reasonable censorial standards to judge whether a idea, which is to be expressed, should be prohibited or not. Furthermore, according to the article, Bok also says the limits will be tried by those ingenuity, and much time will be spend on making the limits prefect and drawing tenuous distinctions. For instance, the free speech could be expressed in an obscure way but still have the same meaning as the original one, which is still offensive to the public. Since the limits do not include those obscure words or ways, the words cannot be controlled effectively. Language is life just as free speech. People can use their life to speak freely and express their own ideas and beliefs; however, the limit of such communication is set by the people. Each boundary may only prohibit only certain types of free speech. It is very hard for the government expand their abilities and try to control freedom which is meant to be uncontrollable. Since we don't have effective and reasonable censorial standards and protean free speech will test the limits, there is no effective way to prohibit all words which may not be deemed acceptable by the whole community.
We should accept every type of free speech, even if some are insensitive and offensive. The right for freedom of speech is inviolable not only because people have the rights to guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, but also because everyone should feel secure enough to express his or her own thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, unwanted words and speeches cannot be prohibited or controlled in any way. The lack of standards that could control such communication is the most important factor. Besides, even if a certain speech is censored or prohibited completely, it does not guarantee that the idea will disappear with it. Those people will turn to other methods of spreading their beliefs. That’s why instead of hiding these ideas in the dark we should allow them to be exposed to the public. Moreover, if the expressed idea truly is wrong, we have the chance to persuade the speaker peacefully and make others understand the right way as well.
