Freedom of speech is highly valued by many democratic societies, and its absence is frequently excoriated. However, the issue of whether the right to speak freely is an essential ingredient of a free society is perhaps more difficult to determine. In my view, a society cannot describe itself as truly free unless its citizens have the ability to speak freely in most situations, although not all.
Free societies, in my view, do not have to tolerate every situation in which citizens express their views publicly. For example, many nations in Europe and North America punish people who use their power of speech to insult foreigners, or incite religious or racial hatred. Provided that such societies apply due process and punishments are proportionate to the offence, they can still be described as free. Another situation in which free speech can be curtailed by a free society is when national security is endangered. A case in point is Britain during the Second World War, which passed emergency laws that punished the passing of information that could have been useful to the enemy, like the geographical locations of factories. As long as such laws are lifted as soon as the danger passes, such a society in my view remains free.
Nevertheless, aside from exceptional situations like those mentioned above, I am of the view that the right to voice one’s opinions openly should be the norm in free societies. The starting point for this position is that citizens make up a country, pay taxes and benefit from the services that the country provides. Everything that a government does is actually done via its citizens, even if at times by only a select few in important positions. In order for a nation to function at all, clearly, some citizens in government positions have to voice their opinions and so influence executive and legislative decisions. It is therefore of the essence of being a citizen that one has the right to influence the decisions made by our governments, even if we are not always directly responsible for the implementation of such decisions. Without a general right to freedom of speech for all citizens, this kind of participation would be impossible, and in practice, only a small elite would be able to take decisions on behalf of whole nations. This is the case in repressive states like North Korea, where a tiny military elite runs the government, while the people whom they govern are unable to have any say in big decisions that affect them because of swingeing restrictions on their right to speak freely.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that freedom of speech is crucial to the definition of a free society, although there will always be some limited situations where this freedom is reduced.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 1316, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ictions on their right to speak freely. In conclusion, I firmly believe that fre...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, however, if, nevertheless, second, so, still, therefore, while, for example, in conclusion, kind of, in my view
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 25.0 13.1623246493 190% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 7.85571142285 102% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 10.4138276553 86% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 7.30460921844 246% => Less relative clauses wanted (maybe 'which' is over used).
Pronoun: 34.0 24.0651302605 141% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 41.998997996 152% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 8.3376753507 192% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2288.0 1615.20841683 142% => OK
No of words: 460.0 315.596192385 146% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.97391304348 5.12529762239 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.6311565067 4.20363070211 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79702785816 2.80592935109 100% => OK
Unique words: 248.0 176.041082164 141% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.539130434783 0.561755894193 96% => OK
syllable_count: 730.8 506.74238477 144% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.60771543086 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 5.43587174349 110% => OK
Article: 4.0 2.52805611222 158% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.10420841683 333% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 3.0 0.809619238477 371% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 7.0 4.76152304609 147% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 16.0721442886 106% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 20.2975951904 133% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 44.1141175059 49.4020404114 89% => OK
Chars per sentence: 134.588235294 106.682146367 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.0588235294 20.7667163134 130% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.11764705882 7.06120827912 101% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.38176352705 91% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.01903807615 20% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 8.67935871743 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 3.9879759519 125% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 3.4128256513 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.124097953133 0.244688304435 51% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0444806518489 0.084324248473 53% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0262300641758 0.0667982634062 39% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.082279269652 0.151304729494 54% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.00663817173985 0.056905535591 12% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.5 13.0946893788 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 50.2224549098 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.44779559118 118% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 11.3001002004 122% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.84 12.4159519038 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.06 8.58950901804 105% => OK
difficult_words: 119.0 78.4519038076 152% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 9.78957915832 112% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 10.1190380762 126% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 10.7795591182 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 61.797752809 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.5 Out of 9
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.