Teecee, you expressed very well in your response to Jimlur the very heart of our founding fathers belief in the FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION as a necessary foundation for the sustenance of democracy and the preservation of political freedom itself. The FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION is preserved as a fundamental right in our Constitution as part of THE BILL OF RIGHTS. The idea behind this freedom is to allow a voice to all ideas, however absurd they may appear, in the marketplace of ideas so that each of us can test them against the background of our own experience and hopefully having some capacity for understanding the nature of sound reasoning and critical thinking (which is where the idea of public education for all and a "free" public school system is derived). Unfortunately, too many of our schools are failing in cultivating those skills necessary for critical thinking.
Unfortunately, those who use the weapon of censorship for adults in some misguided paternalistic notion of "protecting" them from "bad" ideas have no clue how harmful they are being in the learning curve that comes from complete exposure to the fullest spectrum of information. As I said before, a rumor is a species of prediction and will be "tested" by what unfolds (our collective experience) and thereby its source is tested and credibility determined by its history of results. Whether a rumor is circulating from a credible source (one tested by experience) as frequently happens in journalism (or reporting businesses)or from non-credible sources, the proper reaction is not to censor that rumor, but to appropriately convey whether that source has any credibility or not, especially if that rumor has a significant impact, as may have occurred this past week on IDCC's trading. Not reporting the rumor would have been a wrong response, as it would have short circuited a proper evaluation of the credibility of that rumor, which evaluation is precisely what occurred on this board, providing a great service to investors here. So adults should not be treated as morons, needing paternalistic protection from rumors because they are incapable of assessing them in the free marketplace of ideas. Sorry for bringing this issue up again, but the task of defending freedom of speech is never ending it seems.
