Has freedom of speech made our history?

Most people are aware that the freedom of speech doesn't necessarily mean you are 100% free to say anything you want to any person or group without consequences. We know that our freedom of speech in the United States is limited; we cannot say things that will hurt, threaten, or discriminate against others in any way.

I found a really interesting article about the effects that freedom of speech had on Hilter and the times during the Holocaust, which I also found extremely relevant since we will be traveling to Poland in less than a month. The article states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, but the government can restrict free speech in the interests of national security, preserving public safety, and for the prevention of disorder of crime. I can relate that to our situation in the United States today where if any single person mentioned bombs or killing someone, even if it was as a joke, serious action would be taken thinking that the person was linked to terrorism.

But the part I really couldn't believe was how the article asked the question "Do fascists have a right to free speech?" Obviously everyone has a right, it doesn't matter who you are. Yet the controversial issue here is, what if Hilter and the Nazi Party didn't have free speech? Would the Holocaust still have happened? Did the Holocaust occur because these people in political power had unlimited freedom of speech? And would Hilter and the Nazi Party have grown in strength and influence if they were restricted to the things they said? I just find this amazing, because I never actually thought of things that way. I always thought that Hilter and the Nazis just had power, never that they gained this power because they had the right to say whatever they wanted without fear of consequences. Then once getting power, the Nazis restricted the freedom of speech of all other who were not part of the Nazi party.

A quote from the article read "Tens of millions of lives may have been saved if the free speech of Nazis had been suppressed early on." Some people today in our society criticize or complain that we don't have the freedom to say anything we want at any time, but just look at the Holocaust and think how lucky we are. Our country was smart enough to restrict the things people could say for our own safety, so people couldn't come into power who would destroy the nation and create one of the biggest genocides in history. We are lucky that our freedom of speech isn't unlimited.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7113186.stm