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George Orwell once famously said ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' This sentence sums up the very essence of free speech; it is, as Orwell believed, the mother of all civil rights. Without the unconditional freedom to offend it cannot exist. Ideas are, more often than not, dangerous things. There is little point in having freedom of speech if it only defends the most popular and innocuous of opinions. The freedom to offend can perpetrate racial, social or religious intolerance; however, conversely, it is also the only means available to fight against such bigotry. Free speech is not something to work towards when the world is ‘better'; it is, rather, the vital tool through which a better world can be built. Absolute free speech is the cornerstone of all civil rights; without it we cannot truly progress.

Now, more so than ever, ideas are dangerous things. All of them, no matter how suitably innocuous they seem......

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Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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