298 - Defending Public Liberty

There are certain idea that we find detestable. Concepts we find repulsive. Even some actions that we cannot abide. But do we have the right to tell other people that they must live by what we find acceptable? How many dystopian novels are based in the idea that only approved thought is allowed in society? Benjamin Franklin, writing as Silence Dogood wrote:

“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.

What will you do to protect public liberty? What will you allow, not because you approve, but because you recognize the right of others to live differently than you?