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签到天数: 1017 天 [LV.10]大乘
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成奎花 发表于 2014-6-2 14:11
"美国这种对“言论自由”的极端较真"你以对柏拉图"理念"的继承(相对于中国文化"实用性")为解释, ...
人的本性,对同自己相异的意见就会认为是错误的,而对错误的意见自然没有必要宽容。因此对言论进行限制是人类社会的常态。在专制国家是权力阶层对普通大众的限制。而在民主国家,也很容易发展成多数人暴政,对少数人的意见不容忍。因此最高法院法官Oliver Wendell Holmes的看法是美国的制度,包括对言论自由等civil liberty的保护是一个实验,美国人应该珍惜自己的自由,时时保持警惕,防止社会滑向不宽容的深渊。
下面是Holmes的一段话,这也是美国法律史上,最有名的一段判决意见。
Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or you power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition…. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundation of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.
另外我也反对self-censorship,也就是多数人对少数人言论的限制。但是社会舆论毕竟不像国家政权那样拥有警察,监狱等暴力机关,同它作对毕竟不需要担心进监狱,甚至丢了性命。美国现有的制度对言论自由的保护虽然不够完美,但是同专制国家对言路的钳制相比,毕竟是个很大的进步。在人类没有发明出更好的制度以前,没有必要只盯着它不完美的地方,把孩子和水一起倒出去。
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