Dear readers,
today, I would like to talk about a right, that is very important to me, and that is, the right entitling us to the freedom of speech. I am privileged. I am privileged to live in a country on the globe, where I can freely express my thoughts and opinions, without having to fear a governmental threat. Living in the Czech Republic really helped me get the opportunity to express myself. Since I was a little child, I loved that. I was always direct, and always said what's on my mind. As a teenager, I loved making videos and post them on YouTube (even though my opinions didn't really get much of a positive feedback) and a few years ago, I found my true and only love, writing.
About 5% of the words I've written, get the chance to be read by someone else, and only a part of those 5% actually gets on this blog, or gets into a book, which I'll eventually publish. I try to do my best to get a message across to the people reading this, because I also hope, that it is not only I who writes, but also you who reads.
However, there are a lot of problems caused by freedom of speech, which to some extent limit the freedom itself. I once made a video called "Things I don't like about CZECHS", in which I stated some points which I didn't really like about the Czech Republic, and kept it there. It had about 200 views when I checked on it last time about a year ago, on monday it had over 6.000, after a former crush of mine pointed that out to me. I'm saying former, because as a Czech person, one does not really tolerate the Serbian criticizing ones homeland. So that ended badly. I took the video down. I personally thought, that I had the right to freedom of speech, so I decided to simply say, what I think, but I was not ready for all the rude comments, telling me to die. Now, where do we find freedom of speech in that? I do respect criticism, but I disregard offenses.
This got me thinking: Are offenses still freedom of speech? Because, I never meant to offend the Czech Republic in my video, I just question some behavior of the society here, and yet the replies are direct offenses towards me. Are we abusing our freedom to speak up? Since I was recently in Russia, I saw how many people were scared to even say something, about anything, thus being scared to express themselves. And once they do get the chance to say something, they take good care of their words. We, who are used to the freedom of speech, abuse it so much, that we forgot about the true value of this right.
I won't make this post all to long, but I'm working on texts tackling difficult topics, and I hope, that each reader will keep these thoughts on the freedom of speech in mind, as I do value respect and tolerance. I want to make it clear, that I have my opinions, and that I do want to get some of them across to other people, as I feel, that some topics should be tackled, and that's what this blog is also kind of for, so I'm hoping, that it'll go well.
If you have any thoughts on the freedom of speech, please write me a comment, I would really appreciate it! Thank you so much!
Best regards, Stefan!
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