Mill, from On Liberty

Paternalism - restricting a person's liberty for his or her 'own good'

Mill's Harm Principle - restricting the liberty of a person is justified only to protect others from harm, never to protect a person from himself or herself.  (The Harm Principle is inappropriate and inapplicable with respect to children and the incompetent.)

    There is only one reason to interfere with the freedom of others, and that is protection of yourself from that person's actions.  There is no right of anyone to prevent harm to the actor himself; a person's own physical or moral good is not enough.  Even if you are convinced that another person will be happier, healthier, or wiser, those things are reasons to attempt to convince the other person that you are right, but they are not good reasons to compel or force the other person to do or think or be anything that he does not want to do or think or be.
    For Mill, over the individual's own body and mind, he and he alone is sovereign.
    Utility is the ultimate appeal in all questions.
 
Liberty's proper domain is:
a.  Consciousness - conscience, though, feeling and opinion in science, morals and religion, expressing and publishing opinions.
b.  Tastes and Pursuits - right to make and work toward a plan of life; right of combination and assembly.
c.  Each person is the guardian of his own health.

3 categories of paternalistic laws:
    1.  promoting morality
    2.  promoting health and safety
    3.  promoting economic welfare

The tyranny of the majority is more insidious than the tyranny of government
 

"Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"

Freedom of thought and discussion are security against corrupt or tyrannical governments.

Restricting the ability to read, hear, or disseminate information robs the entire human race:
    1.  If the opinion is right, we are deprived of the right to exchange error for truth
    2.  If the opinion is wrong, we lose the benefit of a clearer apprehension of the truth through its collision with error
            We can never be sure that the censored opinion is actually false or wrong.  It may be true.  To believe otherwise assumes YOUR infallibility.  People assume that their feeling that their opinion is true is the same thing as absolute certainty, and they are not the same.  To assume truth because it has not been refuted is one thing.  To presume truth to avoid contesting it is wrong.
    If an opinion is true, but it is not discussed frequently and fearlessly, it becomes dogma.  The meaning of opinion is forgotten when it is not discussed.  It turns out to be nothing more than rote memorization.
    3.  The more common case is that a censored position contains both truth and falsehood.  We lose the same benefits as in cases 1 and 2.