Free speech was found to be indispensable and above all necessary to the society two hundred years ago, when the ten amendments comprising the Bill of Rights were adopted into the Constitution, the bases of which were the ideas and previous experiences of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. One hundred fifty years after this is recognized as a clearly valid initiative, certain individuals argue that speech must be restricted - or protected in politically correct terms - because certain expressions can create a hostile environment for minority groups. Political correctness requires from society equal public respect for all ethnicities, sexual orientations, lifestyles and religions; meanwhile, it strips society of its fundamental right to make conscious decisions based on individuals" own free choice (5). The purpose of this concept is to include all members of society by treating them equally and to remove offensive language, but the cost of transforming our environment into a pleasant, forcefully courteous one is "thoughtcrime"(7). The requirement of equal treatment and language control severely restricts freedom of expression and acts as censorship. Censorship, regardless of its intent and purpose, is in opposition to the theory of democracy and strictly violates the First Amendment.
The Constitution has to be interpreted absolutely in order to preserve democracy in a completely untainted form. By definition, a modern democracy implies certain rights to the individual, including, but not limited to, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom from housing and employment discrimination (8). Modern democracy has a predisposition toward liberalism and does not take into account the largely conservative skeptical view of human nature; instead, it makes specific provisions that allow society, which is capable of rational thought, to engineer and maintain its own relationships.
