I wish I had more time to write about this issue - to create something fancy that would impress the most jaded. I wish that I did not have to do anything at all. But while it is necessary that we dream of an ideal world, it is as necessary, more, to act in the one we have.Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others". Indeed there are problems aplenty with the concept and practice of democracy. And while humans are humans and they congregate in large groups, there will never be a perfect government. But here's the key: to improve on this situation, on any situation involving more than a single individual, freedom of speech is absolutely, positively, unequivocally necessary.
It is a concept rarely recognized throughout most of the sentience of Homo Sapiens. To be able to express yourself and not be punished merely for this expression. How novel. How radical. Yet how utterly important in the quest to realize dreams.
Fuck
Free expression. To say what you want, and allow others to do the same. No matter what they are saying - agree, disagree, don't care; the point is not to condone what they say, but that they can say it in the first place. And others can respond back that they agree, disagree, don't care - without governmental reprisal.
I suspect this preaches to the choir, and other preachers are much more eloquent. But if it happens you are not, and you disagree, you can always tell me. You're allowed. Think what happens when you are not allowed.
This can be a scary world, and it is getting more complex all the time. Now, much more so than in 1776, it is of the utmost necessity that human beings - you and I - are able to speak freely towards one another - the first step towards making our dreams reality.
Let's talk.
Postscript: You may or may not know of a Chinese rocket launch failure (Long March) that happened mid February. "Official" reports claim "a few casualties". Eyewitness reports from americans who were there put the death toll in the thousands - literally truckloads of bodies that are not officially acknowledged. Censorship leads to this. For the sake of the unrealized dreams in all of us, don't let it happen here.