Censorship

I keep on coming up with all these serious topics, I take life way too seriously most of the time. This is not always a good thing, because I am sure I miss out on some of the joys that I could have in life by being so serious. I would rather be intelligent, thoughtful and depressed, then happy and vapid though. Maybe, I just say that because I have not had many times in my life that I have really been happy.

I did actually read a story that had the theme of being smart and dispirited or happy and stupid, and I suppose that in some cases I could say that being intellectual could be situational. For example, if the world was ending and you were the cause of it, and you could do something to make yourself lose your faculties enough to not remember causing this ending, yea, I could go for losing my mind at that point.

Of course, that was all a tangent that had nothing to do with my subject that I am getting to now that I am two paragraphs into my writing. My subject is my feelings about censorship. As a writer, I think it is hard for me to not be against censorship. Of course, not all censorship is in writing, but it a place where there has been a great deal of censorship historically. I really feel that people should be free to share their thoughts and ideas with others. That is one of the great things about the internet.

Now, there are going to be plenty of things that are on the internet, written, made into movies, music, or other medias that I do not like or have no interest in. Now, here is where I have the choice to not expose myself to those forms of media. I can change the channel on the television if I disagree with a program, or change a radio station or listen to cds, I can chose not to look at websites that have material I find offensive. I can even chose not to go to a church that does not share to worship in the way I do.

Of course, the question becomes what about our children and protecting them from the things we do not want them exposed to? Well, the answer there is simple in my mind. Parents monitor them and if there is something they do not want there child exposed to they remove the child's access to it and monitor their children. If there is a book your child is going to read at school that you do not want your child to read, let the school know that you do not think it is appropriate for your child. If other parents still think it is okay for their children, that is their choice to make for their children, not your choice to have a book banned from a school because your feelings on it are different then your own.

Another matter of censorship seems to be a link between censorship and hate crimes. Now, I am very against hate crimes myself and would love to see the bill for hate crimes pass. Mostly because of the amount of discrimination that exists against minorities at this point. I find it very strange that people seem to find a link between hate crimes and censorship personally; unless they feel that by the words that they are saying and printing are indeed going to become a crime by the fact that they are words that incite violence against minorities. Since it seems to be certain churches that have the biggest fears in this area, this makes me really wonder about those churches, and makes me very happy to be in a liberal minded church that accepts minorities.

Now, we get to a few finer points. These have to go more with law I suppose, and with protecting people and such. While I do not believe in censoring material that is said or written, there are laws in place about some materials and I think that many of these laws are very important to follow. For example, I am against child pornography where a child is being exploited. I would hope that other people would find the reasons for this obvious. I think sex should happen between consenting adults. They should be adults because they should understand the ramifications of their actions, and what they do and who they chose to do these actions with are up to them, as long as the terms are agreed upon. As a caveat to this, I also believe that sex should not be done with animals, because they are not able to give knowledgeable consent.

There are other laws which protect people's safety and well being, emotionally and physically. I believe that these laws are also laws that should be followed as well, but, as a whole most of these laws are not ones that lead to censorship. On a whole, I think people need to take responsibility for themselves and their children, and stop blaming media or video games or books as the source of moral problems, and accept the responsibility of teaching morality by having good morals themselves and bring their children up in ways that they learn morals as well.