The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the “liberty of the press” as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government.
No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive … to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. Those words were written by John Stuart Mill in 1859.
When in doubt, liberal democrats should opt for the widest freedom of speech as our default position – just as the medical profession opts for preservation of life. As I said earlier, the liberal democrat strives to prove and to establish that a society can survive, flourish, and be safe and orderly while still maximising freedoms of expression and those other freedoms which rest on freedom of expresion.
Maxim: Whatever the risk, whatever terrorist action transpires in Australia, the case for freedom of expression remains unchanged except for one thing: to reinforce its centrality to civilised life.
Maxim: It is the best (and worst) of us as writers and as citizens who ultimately define our freedom of expression by what we do with it.
Frank Moorhouse: the writer in a time of terror (essay Griffith Review 2006)
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