Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me. “A nursery rhyme”
Can you imagine a time when just anyone could imagine… torture is speech, this pales in light of understanding the intent of the nursery rhyme, a stretch beyond reach, the truest version of this was meant to be seen where words do not carry physical hurt or harm… and to call words (even spoken words) torture is to ignore our own ignorance we would disarm, As adults, acting in a childish manner, we might try to insist something is true… even if it is not, and the truth is then convoluted, turned upside down, as we justify the cost of what we bought.
As an adult, I have come to know the difference between abuse: physical, mental and emotional. I think the difference between abuse and torture, as it relates to ‘free speech,’ should be highlighted as either ill-intent or well intended. With what the CRR (Center for Reproductive Rights) is attempting through the UN by petitioning for religious speech to be called torture… is ill-intent- to remove another’s “Human Rights” to believe what they will (and to say it) at the cost of the rights of another. There needs to be deception used in plain sight of those intended to be deceived… when an ill-intent, caused by an emotional reaction to what is said, is then acted on. In the case of children or those with an immature emotional state… this is called ‘acting out.’
In this case, as mentioned above, it is to be understood when a person does not have a mature control of their own emotions is when any reaction to what one has the liberty to say (without ill-intent) they will lay the blame for their own feelings at the feet of the one they oppose. Sadly, this is the growing and current normative view… to blame someone else for what we might feel, right or wrong, to remove what we feel is then seen as being responsible. In truth, the responsibility rests on our own thoughts… our thoughts influenced more by our own emotions than reason for them, and we seek to remove the cause- as if this corrects our own behavior.
Animaverto intericio interfeci interfectum… aperio intellego intellexi intellectum.
[Latin for: To turn the mind to kill, murder, slay… to uncover (lay bare) to understand, comprehend, see.]