Freedom of speech is an interesting concept because people always think that they should have it but the asshole next to him doesn't deserve it.
In most places freedom of speech is an ideal and indeed the rules and the media do their best to ensure that it remains an ideal. Indeed I doubt there is any place where there is actual freedom of speech.
Shoaib Akhtar can come in and say, write whatever he wants to about Sachin and it shouldn't really matter because he has the right of expressing his opinions.(His opinion might even be an informed one seeing that he actually bowled to him several times). Nobody should be allowed to ban his book event simply because he presents disagreeable views. No book should be stopped from being published because it offends someone's religious sensibilities(Harry Potter, Satanic Verses etc etc). A release of a movie should not be stopped because it handles a difficult subject or indeed dares to present truth but alas the real world is not simple. Once there are curators deciding that 'should' be seen and what 'should' not been seen the whole concept of Freedom of speech goes for a toss.
Freedom of speech deserves to be become something larger. Everyone deserves to have their say no matter what they are saying. It also automatically implies that there should be no censorship which is actually defacto in the world we live in. Everything is sanitized and the rarely does the truth ever gets out.
Perhaps the hardest thing about Freedom of speech is that it sounds good in practice but it also implies that anyone is allowed to say anything about you. Freedom of speech means that someone could call you a fuck up in public and you would have to accept his right to say so.
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