Posted by BGH
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Throughout history of the written and spoken word there have existed efforts to deter or silence opposing viewpoints. This type of attitude, while having the appearance of protecting and insulating your stance from criticism, only indicates the insecurity of your position and gives others an open door to also squelch your ideas from being heard.
Once we start censoring ideas we don’t agree with, all ideas can be silenced, even our own, and nothing is beyond reproach. I don’t agree with the neo-Nazi, the 9/11 truther, the extremely far right, the extremely far left, or many other viewpoints for that matter, but they have a right to speak their mind.
I am strong proponent of free speech, defending the marketplace of ideas and protecting all speech, even that with which I strongly disagree. I feel I can make my case, defend my arguments and if someone can prove me wrong or convince me otherwise, I am willing to accept it. Censorship has no place in society, to wall up sensibilities from scrutiny and brand certain discussion ‘off limits’ pushes modern society backward, causing regression of thought and basically creates automatons from the citizenry.
Say what you will; say what you want, if we disagree, great! At least there is a discussion, and no one’s viewpoints are silenced. We learn best when being confronted with many varied and wide ranging viewpoints, we remain ignorant when only having access to like-minded speech.
On this blog we do not delete comments we disagree with, we let the criticism remain, we state our case in response but DO NOT expel differences of opinion.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” - The Friends of Voltaire (1906), written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre
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2 comments:
As they say, "History is written by the victors". Unfortunately, censorship is, and will always be, a part of society. The truly unfortunate thing about it to me is the fact that some of the worst offenders are societies and governments that claim to be be all about the good of their people.
Censoring opposing viewpoints can not be "for the good of the people". Indeed the sole purpose of such censorship is only for the good of the government.
Good post.
I love this article on censorship. If everyone would listen to each others ideas there would be no arguments only discussion.
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