Some Thoughts About Censorship

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:44:40 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Neil answers an anonymous letter that was printed in last week's edition, asking how to answer those who complain that my watching sex or violence on my TV somehow harms them, hence "there should be a law" forbidding video displays of fake violence and consensual sex. Bottom line, you can't rationally argue them out of their position, because it isn't rational. But you can easily show others how ridiculous it is. [tle]

"'Don't buy it'" Bork maunders onward, demonstrating that he's fully as ignorant of economics as he is of history," and 'Change the channel' are simply advice to accept a degenerating culture and its consequences."

Wrong again. If they didn't buy it, or changed the channel, it would go away. The problem, of course, is that people do buy it and they don't change the channel--because they like it. He hates that--for reasons that should remain his own problem--but can't talk them out of it, so he wants to employ bayonets to impose his will by force.

This is exactly the situation we're seeing lately with another false orthodoxy, that of Global Warming. Its advocates are having more and more difficulty getting people to accept it, so now they want to "decertify" meteorologists who are, in their words, "Global Warming deniers".

It's also the same dynamic that fuelled the Inquisition.

When you end up having to force people to behave as if they agreed with you, it's almost certainly because what you're peddling is horseshit.

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