"Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.
It is the landmark of an authoritarian regime..."
by:
Justice Potter Stewart
(1915-1985) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Source:
Ginsberg v. United States, 1966
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Restricting what people may view on the internet is censorship. Parents may restrict what their children view online, but adults should be able to view anything they want, from pictures of adults having sex to how to make crystal meth.
 -- Joe, Rochester, MI     
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    It 'IS' the landmark of an authoritarian regime. Where is the full public knowledge of: the US's Christian heritage, the curriculum in schools of true individual freedom and liberty with the intent of the founders at the signing of the Constitution, who the real perpetrators of 911 are, natural cures to many of today's medical ailments, what the war mongering bankers/imperialists etc. are doing, how the Supreme Court is legislating the Constitution out of existence, etc. etc. etc. That which is clearly harmful to the individual, such as yelling fire in a crowded theater or porn being shown to minors, is not censorship, it is criminal. Censorship is also a tyrant's tool to eliminate a confident society.
     -- Mike, Norwalk     
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    It is when you can control your tendancies to censor those with opposing views than you that true liberty maturity is achieved within the individual.
     -- JT Ready, Mesa, AZ     
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    Western society loves fiction more than fact. The truth is too confronting, and the press is all too ready to pander to our most basest desires. Truth only spoils the delusion. That is how fascism makes its way into the hearts and minds of the citizens -- the truth is too much to bear.
     -- E Archer, NYC     
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    And what better way to censor than to control a nation's media, allowing a paltry few to express real information in order to make argument for a free press. Corporate control for decades has built an almost total control of the minds of the masses arriving at this "landmark." It has writtten its own version of history and by virture of controlling the past, controls the future.
     -- Dick, Fort Worth     
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    Government censorship is not even the most dangerous. Think of political correctness and how it aims to even control your thoughts through control of the language in banning words and phrases that are not acceptible in society. It is pernicious and it's aim is to produce docile, malleable people who cannot think for themselves.
     -- Ken, Allyn, WA     
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    Think of the censorship that the Catholic Church has repeatedly inflicted upon the world and their attempts to control all aspects of their flock's lives... think of the censorship of America's Taliban...
     -- Anonymous, Reston, VA US     
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    ...and who can ignore the rampant political correctness atmosphere we live in....and the FL legislator who wants to remove the term "illegal alien" from all legislation and conversation. Hmmm...seems like Geo Orwell wrote about something like this....as did Hitler, Mao and Stalin...left wing censors for sure.
     -- Michael, Houston     
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    Censorship is the ultimate expression of insecurity or intolerance intersecting with authority. Can we not tolerate ideas and thoughts by others that have the potential to be better than our own? Its the free exchange of new ideas that brings about progress in so many areas. Would we have the microship if scintists and engineers did have have the freedom to experiment. Freedom of speech is just experimentation in spoken ideas.
     -- scott b., Tulsa     
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    In this day, the true totalitarian-barbarians
    are the self-ordained arbiters of ideological purity, the pharasaic thought police of what
    is characterized as being "political correctness."

    Their puerile, rooted in resentment, animated by animus, creed is sustained by nothing more than their idolization of their psychotically highly idealized self concepts and their illusive notions of the nobility of what they prefer to esteem to be their good intentions.

    The ascension of "political correctness" is a horrifically certain measure of the actuality of the cataclysmic moral and sociocultural declension of our civilization.
     -- Patrick Henry, Red Hill     
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    P. S.

    As Stalin expressed it:

    " Ideas are more powerful than guns.
    We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
     -- Patrick Henry, Red Hill     
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    College campuses are the worst offenders.
     -- jim k, Austin, Tx     
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    The press seems to censor themselves. They mostly give us just enough of the story to support their opinion - rather than the Whole Story.
     -- cal, Lewisville, TX     
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     -- Mary - MI      
    Whatever is exhibited should carry with it the kernels and grains of a rational justification for the exhibit. Censorship should lose its potency with this practiced formula.
     -- Fredrick William Sillik, Anytown     
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