Credo

I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea

Because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast

I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike

That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend

Insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatise, and deny

I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people

Smashing their heads with rocks (To let the bad ideas out)

Drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like

Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds

And are as difficult to control

I believe that repressing ideas spreads ideas

I believe that people and books and newspapers are containers for ideas

But that burning the people who hold the ideas will be as unsuccessful

As firebombing the newspaper archives

It is already too late

It is always too late

The ideas are already out, hiding behind people's eyes, waiting in their thoughts

They can be whispered, they can be written on walls in the dead of night

They can be drawn

I believe that ideas do not have to be correct to exist

I believe you have every right to be perfectly certain that images of god or prophet or human

That you revere are sacred and undefilable

Just as I have the right to be certain of the sacredness of speech

And of the sanctity of the right to mock, comment, to argue and to utter

I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things

I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me

And that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that I believe you think

I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive

Stupid, preposterous, or dangerous

And that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things

And that I do not have the right to kill you

Maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property

Because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting

You probably think some of my ideas are pretty vile, too

I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win

Because the ideas are invisible

And they linger

And, sometimes, they can even be true

Eppur si muove, and yet it moves