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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Daily Cascade #1097673 added September 19, 2025 at 12:15pm
Restrictions: None
On Freedom of Speech
Prompt:
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
― Theodore Roosevelt
Your thoughts on freedom of speech with all that has happened recently with Jimmy Kimmel.
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Let me start by saying that I rarely watch TV. I don't think I have watched any talk shows possibly in three decades. The only time I have the TV on, to the local news channels, is when I'm eating supper alone.
Also, the only time I probably liked watching TV--just a tiny bit-- was probably during the 60s and the 70s, and even then, I wasn't much into it. Remember we used to call it the "idiot box"?
My late husband, btw, loved TV, not that he was an idiot, quite the contrary, but he usually watched business channels, arts and sciences programs, movies, and maybe Johnny Carson every once in a while. To be with him in those times, I'd either take a book or take my knitting or crocheting and stay in the room, glancing at the TV once in a while.
The reason I'm yakking so much about me and TV is to say that I'm not qualified to have a decent opinion on the subject, especially with the present goings on.
As to Jimmy Kimmel, I have never ever watched him. I don't know how he talks, walks, or thinks, and I don't care. Where the recent hullabaloo is concerned, I do think everyone has a right to their opinions; however, those opinions should not be aired at the expense of innocent people.
Since part of the question of the prompt was about him, I tried to find out what he said. On the media, they wrote, what Kimmel exactly said is iffy. The only reason I found out why his show was taken off the air was that he said, the killer was from a MAGA family, which was later established that the killer was quite the opposite for he sided with the left. So, I gathered Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air for giving false information. So what! Everyone, these days, is full of it with false info on the air and on the internet.
Since now I'm done with the Jimmy Kimmel story, let me write about what I think of freedom of speech, regardless of what Theodore Roosevelt said.
Freedom of speech is our right in this country. Period. If I were to define it, I would say it is the right of a person to express their opinions, ideas, and beliefs without censorship or restraint by the government or any other faction. The value of the freedom of speech lies in the fact that it protects diversity or thinking. This means self-expression with accountability, progress and open dialogue.
The reason I underlined accountability is because freedom of speech sometimes becomes dangerous when it steps into the areas where words directly incite harm or cause the demise and hatred of groups and individuals.
What I mean by that is this; incitement to violence, such as riots and terrorism, and direct, targeted threats or defamation to groups and persons that put at risk their safety and good names. Then I must also include hate speech, the spreading of dangerous falsehoods, and lies that target elections and cause unrest.
Therefore, freedom of speech is wonderful when it opens paths for civilized dialogue, critique, and ideas. Otherwise, it turns dangerous like any other thing in the wrong hands.
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