“Know Your Rights”

Continuing on with my Clash themed week, I chose this song because it’s quite accurate. “You have the right to free speech, as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.” Such a great line! As well as being SO very true.

There was (I believe? Maybe?) a time when dissension was not only permitted, but actually *gasp* encouraged. We can extend this back to the early Greeks and the emergence of “The Socratic Dialogue” and of course, we all know what happened to Socrates (the hemlock he willingly drank). Plato later wrote a defense of Socrates titled “The Apology” and this line truly resonates: “I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?”

Yes, indeed. Here’s another quote from a favorite writer of mine, Oscar Wilde:

“And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!”

Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898”