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.
World War II proved a hypothesis that Alexis de Tocqueville advanced a century before: the war-fighting potential of a democracy is at its greatest when war is most intense; at its weakest when war is most limited. This is a lesson with enduring relevance to our own times - and our own wars.
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.
I do not know if there is a more dreadful word in the English language than that word "lost."
The mind of a human being is formed only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore cannot precede the existence of memory.
This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.
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