Freedom of speech is unpredictable and makes no promises.

One day it will stand up to the microphone tall, dark and handsome with words elegant and poised as they glide across its suit and tie into a crowd of onlookers.

The next, it will be marching in the streets fervidly chanting heated slogans in a roughed-up protest shirt, moving with the mounting energy of a surrounding mass of people.

Human beings are capable of speaking with more than just a mouthful of thoughts; they can lightly touch, break, burn and hold.

However, eyes and silence sometimes speak the loudest.

The purpose and meaning of free expression can be as abhorrent as a disfigured monster lurking beneath a bed, unpalatable like a glass of curdled milk or as gentle on the senses as the soft caress of a warm hand.

Whether it is welcome or not though, all forms of expression deserve to be heard; and in the United States, freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution that gives people the right to communicate their convictions and ideas without having to live in fear of censorship or retaliation by the palm of government.

Although free speech is not absolute, just as the hypotheses of astronomers contemplating the origins and breadth of the universe only reach so far. Yet, theories regarding stardust and planets floating through space should probably be considered carefully before being dismissed so as to ensure that a peculiar phenomenon isn't overlooked.

Likewise, exceptions to free expression found in cases involving speech that apparently inflict damage must not be hastily concluded either because free speech, like the universe, is precious but not always easily understood.

At first glance, it may make little sense that extreme manifestations of this abstract concept such as neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and hate groups alike are allowed to proliferate in the United States and say what they will.

But, the belief is that all forms of speech must be protected no matter how ugly, despised and controversial they are, because people must learn to disagree and challenge ideologies they hold in contempt or misapprehend rather than silence them.

After all, those who choose to study time and space will learn soon enough that the universe can't be quieted. There are no safe spaces, only black holes and an unpredictability that calls out with moonlight fingers daring the mind to wonder about a vast expanse of things that are dangerously beautiful.

Free expression should do the same.