The Erosion Of Free Speech

Erosion of Free Speech “The U.S. and Britain have long thought of themselves as, above all, free countries. If that identity continues to atrophy, free speech will be the first victim. But it will not be the last.” [O'Sullivan, John]. Where O’Sullivan ends his article, “No Offense: The New Threats to Free Speech”, I can begin; countries who often pride themselves on their freedom, the U.S. especially, seem to be losing their grip on reality as their citizens lose their grip on free speech. O’Sullivan writes his article over the span of 1989 to 2014, in which he clearly illustrates the downward slope that these ‘great’ countries have been taking. He is right in his conclusion of atrophying countries, and more predominantly the disintegration of truly free speech. Many people assume that the bounds of free speech have grown

That is, Feb. 14th, 1989, to be specific. John O’Sullivan at the time worked at a panel on press freedom for the Columbia Journalism Review. On that day, an audience member brought up the British novelist Salman Rushdie, specifically on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s religious pronouncement of blasphemy against the novelist. O’Sullivan recalls, “saying most of the right things about defending freedom of thought and the imagination.”. He also noted how the media, specifically the political worlds, was in defense of Rushdie. The novelist even becoming “a hero of free speech and a symbol” [O'Sullivan, John]. The ‘curtain of security’ for Rushdie lasted many years, however, it was not forever. As when it seemed those in support of him were also at risk, publishers, editors, and translators, his support thinned. People’s belief in free speech were contrasted against fear among other things, and rationalization as O’Sullivan puts it “spread outward”. This was far from the only event to have transpired over the last twenty or so