This is CBS, I am the world. I'm John Bachelor welcoming my colleague Peter Berkowitz of the

Hoover Institution writing at real clear politics about free speech.

Peter I ask a frequently asked question that is skipped sometimes.

Why do we need free speech?

What does it do for us?

Good evening Peter? Good evening,

John. It's an excellent question and all of those, all of us who

defend it should be, should be happy to give the answer. There are two broad justifications for it.

The first justification is that it's essential to democracy.

We need to get the word out. We need to acquire information. We need to exchange opinions in order to become more informed

citizens.

You can't have an effective democracy, a rights protecting democracy without free speech. But there's another and deeper justification of free speech

which is connected to American constitutional government really bound up with the

principles on which our form of government is based. That is

free speech is I think one of our unalienable rights that is it's essential to

our humanity. How so? Because we are, as Aristotle would have said, social and

political beings, that means that we speak, we make judgments about what's

just and unjust, what's noble and based we create things we exchange opinions and for us to be

To be faithful to our humanity. We need to be able to express our opinion and we need to be able to hear other people's

express their opinions.

So instrumental to democracy and because it's part of our nature.

Sorry.

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