Outlawing: Germany and other countries outlaw the swastika, “Mein Kampf”, Nazi propaganda, and Holocause denial.
Editing: The American FCC restricts what can be shown over the airwaves in primetime. This includes radio edits of popular music, shortening movies to run in the time allotted, and changing dialog in movies to be more “age appropriate”.
Shouting people down: These include incidents at Emory University where David Horowitz, Columbia University where the Minutemen, and Bill Maher’s show “Reel Time” where all interrupted.
Book burning: Nazi book burning rallies in Nazi Germany during the 30s and 40s. These started on college campuses organized by Nazi student organizations.
Terrorism: Death threats to authors like Salman Rushdi (author of the “Satanic Verses”, a book perceived to condemn Islam) and the murder of Theo Van Gogh the director of a movie condemning the treatment of women under Sharia Law.
There are other forms of censorship of course, but the aims are always the same. To limit opinion and silence perceived objectionable thought. The goals are the same, the reasons can be different. According to the American Library Association (ALA) in 2000 there was a total of 6,364 challenges to American libraries to remove objectionable content. Note: it is estimated 1 in 5 challenges is reported to the ALA.
- 1,607 were challenges to “sexually explicit” material
- 1,427 to material considered to use “offensive language”
- 1,256 to material considered “unsuited to age group”
- 842 to material with an “occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism”
- 737 to material considered to be “violent”
- 515 to material with a homosexual theme or “promoting homosexuality”
- 419 to material “promoting a religious viewpoint.”
- 317 for nudity
- 267 for racism
- 224 for sex education
- 202 for anti-family
These challenges occurred in school libraries as well as public libraries.
There has been epidemic lately of attacks on freedom of speech. Some people don’t want to even recognize the opposition opinion. They don’t even want to give it the time of day for an honest debate. An example of this is when the Democrats refused to have their Presidential debate on Fox News. They basically sent the message that Fox News and their opinions is not worth giving credence to.
The next step is to decide that the “other side” is damaging and needs to be silenced by “any means necessary” which can include the censorship tactics above. The censorship does not have to be state imposed. Individuals and other institutions can enforce censorship on others as well. It would not surprise me in the least if I turned on the television one day and the news was talking about how a major American university, probably an ivy league school, has banned a speaker after student disapproval. Then some time later a bunch of students will of raided a library or the book store and stole books and magazines they object to and have a book burning in the quad. I hope I am proven wrong.
Here are some links:
Horowitz at Emory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SrFXdkjbdY
Minutemen at Columbia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNXmy0e5fc
Nazi book burning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4_j4c7Bop
Banned Books List (ALA): http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm
Recommended books:
Fahrenheit 451
1984
