In his classic defense of freedom of expression, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill argued that the most important reason for freedom of expression is to promote competition between the widest possible range of ideas, and that unfettered debate is the best way to test them. For the government to protect ideas from criticism is to turn them into a lifeless and rigid dogma, regardless of whether they are true.
但这些例子的相关性又有多高呢？在言论自由的经典著作《论自由》中，约翰·斯图亚特·密尔（John Stuart Mill）提出确保言论自由最重要的原因是尽可能促进各种思想之间的竞争，而无拘无束的辩论是检验思想的最佳方法。而对政府来讲，保护主张不受诘难的最好方法莫过于将其变成没有生命的僵硬教条，而不管这些思想是否正确。