What is free speech? No, I know, its the freedom to speak freely, that's not what I'm asking. What is free speech?
Is it being told by my English teacher that we must willingly submit to at least some censorship? Incidentally, that was the last English class I took.
What our debate was about was a disagreement over my score when I told her that based upon her own system, that opinions couldn't be wrong, she had no grounds for marking me down. Ironically enough she then fell victim to Godwin's Law. I'm not certain why my analysis of Fahrenheit 451 warranted a comparison of that level, but evidently it did.
Why was I being told that my opinion was wrong because it disagreed with hers, if free speech is the expression of opposing viewpoints? Why is it the same way with radical left and right wing partisans? Why do they berate and attack any disagreement with how they see things in an effort to suppress it? Why was I being marked down for not agreeing to be censored, when the presentation of that disagreement was beyond reproach in its technical aspects? Why is it that if politicians cannot find a legitimate argument against one policy or standpoint they immediately revert to attacks on the character of the opposition? Should my past really matter in a scientific forum?
The point of the course was to learn to use the English language, wasn't it? Why then, if I was mechanically accurate to the graded subject should my opinion matter in regards to my score?
Is that free speech?
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That just sounds like English teachers in general. At risk of sounding ignorant I will subject you to my suppostion that said teacher leans to the left of the social spectrum. Such is the case with the majority of college english teachers. Opinion is the foundation upon which the rules of language has been built. Language is not so much a science as it is a concencus of mass opinion.
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