Resolved: When in conflict, an individual's freedom of speech ought be valued over community moral.

I affirm. "Give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry, founding father, wrote: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Because I agree with Patrick Henry, I must affirm the resolution, Resolved: When in conflict, an individual's freedom of speech should be valued above a community's moral standards. In order to clarify the round, I offer the following definitions. Conflict, being the specified limit of the resolution, is defined as discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles. An individual is a distinct, indivisible entity; a single thing, being, instance, or item. Freedom of speech is the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc. To value is to consider with respect to worth, excellence, usefulness, or importance. And finally, moral standards are the beliefs and/or judgements of an individual or individuals based on what is right or wrong. For reasons of clarifying the limiting factors of the resolution, I present the following observation and analysis: Although both the resolution and its underlying puzzle set the parameters of the debate as requiring a conflict between both the affirmative's and the negative's set values, a harmful conflict may not exist when the underlying question includes that of freedom of speech. Such because that freedom of speech allows the expression of public opinions without interference, but is not considered in cases of libel (lying), incitement to violence (promotion of violence), and rebellion. So in all cases of conflict between any moral standard and freedom of speech, no physical may thus result. I value liberty because it is the ultimate good implied by the resolution which questions the weight of two set values, one being freedom of speech and the other community moral. Liberty is the freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice. The affirmative side seeks to achieve ultimate liberty by means of the value criterion which is the preservation of individual liberty. The preservation of individual liberty best achieves the value premise of liberty because if we are all equal (and I say that we are), then no one has the right to infringe upon the rights of another. Individual freedom will lead us to supreme liberty if leads us to the preservation of individual liberty, which it does. Thus, the answer to the underlying question of today's resolution is that individual freedom – and not the moral standards of a community – will lead us to the preservation of individual liberty – and thereby to liberty in its most pure form – because if a society treasures an individual's expression of ideals, then they must sacrifice the community's standards for the sacred and the profane; if moral judgements and standards are valued above our freedom to express ideologies, there is no "safety net" upon which we may stop these judgements from being valued above and destroying all of our liberties as a whole; and set limits exist on freedom of speech while moral judgements are created from opinions based by an individual or, as in this resolution, a group. 1. If a society treasures an individual's expression of ideals, then they must sacrifice the community's standards for the sacred and the profane. As the two are mutually exclusive, it is impossible to have liberty of thought and preserve the judgements of moral standards. An individual's pure and unfettered ability to speak and write about ideology can only thrive in an environment of tolerance. If the right to be offended (by individual expression) reigns supreme, liberty is thus precluded. In order to maintain a community moral standard, it is required that the right to feel offended is more important than the right to liberty. And where does the moral standard stop? It has no apparent limits. If somebody has been offended, has a moral standard thus been broken? Where as an individual's right to free speech has a natural limit. John Stuart Mill (Essay on Utilitarianism) wrote: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." Because free expression of ideas will invariably result in offense. To be truly free, all forms of expression must be unimpeded. Any selective control, no matter how trivial, will reduce all freedoms. Those who have control this so-called standard will be the only ones who feel free. Those who control will be free to make their subjective political judgements, but everybody else's freedom will be impeded. The exercise of individual rights with the absence of government control is the definition of liberty; you cannot have both government control and the exercise of individual rights while still achieving liberty for all. Tolerance is the price of liberty. Without tolerance, judgements which are no standards will diminish or eliminate individual freedom. Both community judgement and individual freedom can be maintained with tolerance for free speech of an individual or group of individuals, as intolerance is the first and most important ingredient of tyranny. 2. If moral standards and judgements are valued above our freedom to express ideologies, there is no "safety net" upon which we may stop these judgements from being valued above and destroying all our liberties as a whole. As this has not yet happened in our current society, this is a logical argument and must be analyzed as such in the most extreme cases. In opening, people view liberties as a whole under the concept of liberty. So if all liberties are tied in together, what is the value difference between these separate liberties? The answer is that there isn't. If we undervalue a single liberty which is in equality with all other liberties of any kind, what is to prevent all of these liberties from being undervalued? The answer is if all are equal, then nothing stops a moral judgement from affecting everything in the case that they are in fact equal. Society would simply not function properly if our liberty was detained because slavery would be justified because the value of human freedom would be undervalued relative to the needs of a majority's moral standards. John Stuart Mill writes: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." 3. Freedom of speech increases the quality of ideological thought. The reliance on freedom of speech is massive when in accordance to the accuracy of new media, economic development, and the purity of political exchange. As today's society perfectly portrays, bias exists on a mass scale in news media. As the wealth of nations has proven thus far, the free market economic system yields the largest amount of public and worldwide wealth in history. In a world under the free market economic system, goods from the primary, secondary, and service sectors flow smoothly through to wherever the highest demand is at the time. As such stated, moral standards have impeded upon the purity of political exchange. This current flaw of our political system ties in with the bias which does exist in our news media. At the time in which we live, major news media sources allow their moral philosophy of politics to show an extremist's bias towards liberal view points. As it currently stands, these sources believe that it is right to have the same political ideologies as democratic and liberal politicians, but that it is wrong to have any major difference from this main flow of ideas. As a result, the object of which we obtain most of our information, the television news, supplies biased, inaccurate information. Such a result ought to be avoided because . This preservation of individual liberty maximizes liberty altogether in this case in that the affirmation of this contention outweigh those (if any) which exist in negation of the claim; thus, individual liberty achieves liberty on a larger scale than the scale which the negative may insist exists on community moral standards. For the reason I have previously stated, we can clearly conclude that liberty should be upheld and when in conflict, our individual liberty of expressing ourselves ought be valued above the moral standards of a community. And for these reasons I urge an affirmative ballot.