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On the importance of free speech

Ladysmith - Having just read the article "Strike aimed to silence? We say Je suis Charlie" along with the impressive letter to the editor by Bill Woollam, I would like to contribute a quotation from the preeminent book On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill.

"But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."Kevin McCallum Ladysmith