Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Interpretation
Free speech safeguards the expression of controversial ideas, not just dull or universally accepted opinions.
Colin Powell's quote emphasizes the essence of free speech as a shield for not only popular or easy-to-accept views but also for those that challenge the status quo or provoke thought. It suggests that the true test of free speech is its capacity to protect the most controversial and outlandish expressions, as these are often the ideas that require the strongest defense against censorship or societal pushback.
In practice
In a debate on social media about censorship, one might quote Powell to emphasize that free speech must embrace all forms of expression.
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says 'we can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best. 'Spare me the grim litany of the 'realist;' give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day.
One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman. But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop.
Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.
If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.
High-quality early-childhood programs and health coverage have expanded, and the number of mentoring relationships for at-risk youth has risen dramatically. That progress is encouraging, but it's not evenly distributed.
As I've thought about gay marriage, I don't see any reason not to say that [couples] should be able to get married.
Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.
The thought came over me that never would one full and absolute moment, containing all the others, justify my life, that all of my instants would be provisional phases, annihilators of the past turned to face the future, and that beyond the episodic, the present, the circumstantial, we were nobody.
In this we see the wondrous virtue of the Lord: that the power dwelling in His body should communicate to perishable things the efficacy to heal, and that the divine activity should issue forth even from the hem of His garment. For God is not perceptible by the senses, to be enclosed within a body. The assumption of a body did not limit the nature of His power; but for our redemption His power took upon it the frailty of our body.
'Which is stronger, politics or love?' is like asking, 'Which is stronger, exhaling or inhaling?' They are two sides of the same thing.
What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.
If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him.
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