Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu Linux, has a stirring blog post up titled In defense of independent governance.

I cannot due a summary justice, but Mr. Shuttleworth’s extremely well written words on culture, democracy and free speech have moved me, and I encourage you to read it.

I’ll leave you with this from Mark Shuttleworth:

At times like these, we are our own worst enemy. We hear what we want to hear. It is painful to hear that one might be wrong, that one’s hero might have flaws, that one’s leaders might not be all that we wished them to be. The awful truth of the media is that it pays to tell people what they want to hear, much more than it pays to tell people what they need to hear, and so society can whip itself into a frenzy of mistaken greed or fear or anger, and make poor decisions.

It takes great courage to speak out, when these basic principles are at risk. In a free society, there is nevertheless pressure to conform, to stay with the herd. In a society that is not free, one speaks out at some considerable personal cost to life and liberty. I salute those who do.