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from the I-Disapprove-of-What-You-Say,-But-I-Will-Defend-to-the-Death-Your-Right-to-Say-It dept.
From an editorial in the Otago Daily Times out of New Zealand, Censorship a Trojan Horse:
It's an oft-cited maxim that the news media is the "fourth estate" upon which a healthy democracy stands.
It ensures the three traditional powers of state — the legislature, executive and judiciary — can be critiqued, challenged and curbed from quietly drifting into the arms of corruption and authoritarianism.
A free, fair, open and uncensored media is an antidote to state power and, for all its failings (and there are many), should be treasured as such. There are many countries around the world whose people would give anything for such a freedom.
Yet calls for the banning of certain opinion pieces, cartoons and commentary have risen in recent months, especially from those using social media, a world where such talk is becoming a trend. It is a trend we must confront.
Censorship is to suppress the harmful, the unacceptable, the obscene and the threatening from the media and other forms of public communication. Like a virus attacking democracy from the inside out, it was traditionally the tool of the dictator, though it is one used by many in power.
[...] It pays to query what those demanding censorship — be they celebrities, social-media activists or anybody else — see their ultimate goal as being.
To reduce hurt? To make the world a better place? Possibly, and those motivations are laudable. But the method employed to achieve them is not.
While censorship may be meant as a figurative horse upon which a better future rides, inside the belly of that horse lurks an army of conformity, quite capable of unwitting oppression.
History shows what happens when the fourth estate is no longer free to table all opinions.
It is a bleak picture. Without the disinfectant of exposure, power and ideals tend to corrupt even the most seemingly incorruptible.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:10PM (7 children)
Sorry, can you say that in German? It's missing something in English, you know...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:19PM (6 children)
Well no, that was actually sorta the problem. In both WWI and WWII we were fighting Germany while having large populations of Germans, speaking German and reading German language newspapers and having a fair amount of loyalty to Germany. Ain't it amazing now you can flip open a history book to a random event and see how immigration is at best a mixed blessing?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:28PM (5 children)
Look into where the Germans got their eugenics ideas. Go on. I'll wait.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:33PM (4 children)
I'll go you one better. Look into where Gobbels got Propaganda.
Posted many times that WWII was a war between International Socialism (Allies) vs National Socialism (Axis). People who wanted to live free had no dog in that fight.
Or shorter still, quoting Moldbug's Last Red Pill: America is a Communist Country.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:50PM
Ah yes, the serious usage of "Red Pill", the most clear indicator of an unbalanced mind.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:50PM (2 children)
Don't conflate the authoritarian/libertarian axis with the communist/laissez-faire axis. Authoritarians of all stripes will gravitate toward economic extremes, because it fits their worldview. You're being used by the authoritarian right, and if there ever was a contradiction in terms, it's authoritarian free-market economy. That's a logical impossibility, like a married bachelor.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday October 02 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
1. A free market requires law and order, the rule of law, sound money, enforcement of contracts and a whole bunch of things the Left now deems bad ideas.
2. A unfettered free market is not the apex value for a civilization that expects to survive, it is just the most productive economic system. Even Ludwig von Mises says this in his magnum opus, Human Action
Balance in all things is the winning move. Liberty without responsibility is merely license. Go read the Founders, one phrase keeps recurring that we seem to abhor today: Ordered liberty.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:36PM
Ah yes, ordered liberty. I agree that freedom is slavery. If it weren't for the leftists, we would be able to have peaceful wars just like in the good old days. Some people call this ignorance, but people like you and me know that it's strength.