A long time ago I did a little speech on Censorship in America. Being my first speech class ever it was pretty lame, I tried to get the class riled up about it. But they were all born and raised christian so I don't think they saw censorship as one of the ultimate evils of government as I do. To them it was something required to protect the public from 'evil' or something.
This is before I found evidence of christians being censored. They would've cared then.
Anyway my focus was on the media. How after 9-11 they wouldn't air any Pokemon episodes with buildings getting hit or blown up by anything or even had the word 'tower' in their name because "It was too frightening for children"! Also how many books get banned for things like "the word demon was in page 78 of 600 pages; it was a spiritual reference". Who cares?! If a kid has a question they should be able to ask mom and dad about it... oh wait it's America mom and dad are gone all day working for what I don't know.
As a kid I was introduced to the concept of censorship when a Chinese girl, Rayray, lived with us for something like 4 months (I was 7 time wasn't important if it was over hour increments). My parents were great about letting me know things, so instead of keeping the conversation she wanted to have with out house guest on the down low she let me be privy to it. My mom asked what Rayray thought about what had happened in Tiananmen square.
Rayray promptly replied that what my mom thought had happened never happened. It's all foreign propaganda, her country told her so and communists never lie to their people.
WTF?!
Censorship in moderation sure. Keep that bad mouthed dude's words out of the mouths of our 5 year olds. We don't really need to be seeing people bump uglies on prime time tv. And having every single organ for display as the killer does his deed is overkill. (haha pun!)
But turning off a little girl's microphone because she says 'Jesus' in a nonironic way, taking out scenes from cartoons because we can't let our kids have any kind of practice dealing with emotions till their 10, and taking great works like 'where the sidewalk ends' off the shelves because it might, maybe, have a spiritual reference in it is stupid.
Just like it's stupid that hate groups have the right to keep their blogs but a cop who posts what her day was like get's her posts censored and doesn't even know why. Not only that but to yank her whole site and offer it up to anyone on the internet. To keep my rage to a minimum and avoid being the kind of blogger I dislike, I slept on the information I received. Thought up my response and what it should look like, sound like, how much of my emotion was superfluous. Because, this is an issue near and dear to my heart.
Why in America of all places should there be censorship?! Freedom of speech within the box other people allow? And this leads into another issue near and dear to my heart that I may screech about later.
The loudest voice gets heard, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and those of us with enough personal scruples not to go around whining like bitches every time we see something that offends us are the ones who get the raw end of the deal. Those of us who are honest that we can understand one side of the argument get chastised. People who just say what's on everyone else's mind get shafted. While the whacko off the wall minority guy who offends EVERYBODY get's some kind of diplomatic immunity. Go watch Lethal Weapon if you don't know how this could be a bad thing.
Blogger I'm amazed at you. If I'd heard, "hey they sent her an email that the blog was censored because it was found to be [state reason here]" I would be understanding, you're a company and sadly because of things I said I wouldn't screech about you have to cover your butt a lot I'm sure. But no you didn't, instead you're also censoring the fact that your censoring by not letting her post about it! What's the deal?! No really I want to know. Because come a time when some random christian or nonchristian group runs across a blog I may write about why I think they're psycho I want to know whether or not you're going to have my back or if I should take my thoughts elsewhere.
WOW, THOSE DREAMS!
3 years ago
Love Love Love it... thanks.. Momma Fargo,, being a cop in real life,, has learned to preserve herself by sometimes walking off and not standing up for rights.. This is one of those times,, we need to stand up for her.. she puts her life on the line every day to protect people... she deserves better than the treatment that blogger gave her..
ReplyDeleteNicely put:-)
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