Our Freedom to Speak

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” – Madeleine Albright ~ The first woman United States Secretary of State

We need to speak up so that others will have the opportunity to be heard. Our freedom of speech is not just a right, it is our civic duty to act upon it. When we share our opinions, we help create the communal dialogue from which sound decision-making is constituted.

The collective voice is only as strong as the fortitude of the individuals who will not be silenced when injustice has a say. We foundation our morals on the ideals of our forefathers and mothers, so that what we believe can one day be built upon.

Long after we are gone, our words will continue the journey that our minds set in motion. Coupled with the off-chance hope, it is our contemporary colloquy that will solve the fated problems we know not yet exist.

The words we use today construct the platforms where future ideas will be heard tomorrow. We stand on the shoulders of those who spoke before because it provides us the best opportunity to be listened to, even from afar.

We pass down not just flesh and blood, but the imagination to believe in a better life. The ideas we don’t share will be lost between the confluence of generations.

A community is not defined by people in close proximity, but by those who speak up for their neighbors. We are bound together by everything that we say and do, but only when we realize it.

We owe it to them, and to us, and those to come, that we do not go quietly into this dark night without reply. How loud we are able to be will be defined by our synergy. For us, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts because of the immeasurable impact human beings are able to make when we work together.

We are only able to speak freely because someone, someday, spoke up. Whether shouted from mountaintops, or transcribed far below, our message will not be defined by how it is delivered, but by how many are given the ability to receive.

#MadeleineAlbright

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