Wail Shet Mah Mouf!
Channel: VoxNeruda
Date: 28/09/2012

President Obama Speaks to the United Nations General Assembly [Excerpt]

[President Obama is a constitutional lawyer and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Pleasing speech should come as no surprise- even the Devil can quote scripture.]

We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.  I know there are some who ask why don't we  just ban such a video.  The answer is enshrined in our laws.  Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. 

Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense.  Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.  As president of our country, and commander in chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. 

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views -- even views that we profoundly disagree with.  We do so not because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. 

We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities. We do so because, given the power of faith in our lives, and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech -- the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect. 

I know that not all countries in this body share this particular understanding of the protection of free speech.  We recognize that. But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete.