Freedom From Consequences

Political Rhetoric

intellectual™-sounding argument issued as a coded warning you are about to be hounded, attacked, fired, and ruined for saying words.

The arguments surrounding Freedom of speech which has its roots in 17th century British Parliamentary structure were most famously articulated by John Stuart Mill in “On Liberty” (1859), and resounded in the American 1st Amendment protection against consequences to individuals from the government. Almost all laws (at least in Western countries) protect individuals from illegal acts which could be consequences of their speech (e.g. assault or murder). The most telling insight into the evolution of the phrase is in how it has morphed from the original “freedom from criticism” to the chilling “freedom from consequences”, indicating a much wider scope than mere speech in response.

• https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&content=freedom+from+consequences
• https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=freedom+from+consequences
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill
• https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm