Loose Cannons

I am a huge fan of democracy, people exercising their constitutional rights and such. I know many people are going to disagree with me but I have always felt that certain freedoms especially freedom of speech shouldn't be to put it in a nice way, "too free". Is there any such thing as too much freedom of speech? 

Many people advocate for freedom of speech but always forget the responsibility aspect that comes hand in hand with freedom of any sort; it's a package, you can't choose one and leave the other. As Ghana develops, a lot of people advocate for certain freedoms the most common being freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has been abused by journalists, "serial callers", social commentators, politicians and the average Ghanaian. I don't listen to the radio anymore; I just cringe every time I do because there are so many loose cannons on air. Loose cannons are not only annoying and stupid, but are a danger to themselves and the people around them. They are people who seem to think they are authorities on issues they have no business at all talking about. There's nothing more annoying than a semi educated person who believes that by virtue of being a social commentator or a journalist of some sort, he or she is an authority on economics and understands how the economy of the country works. It gets me thinking, "How the hell did they get on air?!!" These loose cannons are the ones who always make senseless, baseless, down right stupid statements that just get everyone thinking, "What the &*$k!!?" And you wonder why and how they have been given the platform to even talk in the first place. 

In a country where people won't take the time to actually understand the true cause of issues and make politically biased decisions, the media and people with access to a broad listener base have the responsibility of educating the masses. Sadly, this hardly happens. The media will gladly perpetuate a bias or a stereotype; I don't know if they do this to keep their listener base or they just enjoy the confusion that occurs. When people are called to account for such unruly comments they hide under the blanket of 'Freedom of speech". If that speech is so free, why hide under that blanket? Own your comments and statements, stand by them and defend them. Others make certain statements too because they feel the statements are true so it's okay to make them. Thing is, it's not just about making the statements; it's about the domino effect those statements can cause. Therein lies the problem. The thing about freedom is that, your freedom can infringe on mine; the loose cannons on air are infringing on my freedom to peace of mind and sensible conversation whenever I turn on my radio. So how do we deal with that? 

If you can't be responsible with your speech, you don't deserve the freedom to say what you like. Period.