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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: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 03 2018, @03:09PM
Lawful evil is completely correct. The thing is, though, there is a small kernel of truth in some of the scientific stuff he's saying. In fact, when you get right down to it, some of it matches common-sense environmentalism very clearly, specifically that resources are limited and if we want a good standard of living, we need to equlibrate the population.
Where he goes wrong, of course, is this bizarre masturbatory He-Man Master of the Universe fantasy he's got where everyone is some sort of modern-day Spartan. We are an intelligent species; the key to the K-type behavior he's advocating for is intelligence, knowledge, and will, not living like 18th century farmers.
See, he's got a real problem with race hatred, so he's using the K/r selection hypothesis to justify it. See the comment on "Laqueefa and her 8 future welfare dependents" below. The solution to that is fixing the very environmental and cultural problems that lead to the r-selected behaviors he's complaining about, *but slashing the social safety net won't do that.* Especially not since it barely works to begin with. He's unwilling to do what really needs to be done, because that means acknowledging that "Laqueefa" as he puts it is precisely as human and deserving of a decent life as he is; it comes as no surprise than that what he proposes amounts to demographic-based genocide.
This is so fucking frustrating. How can people get started with a kernel of good ideas and then mutate into this?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...