Is_Censorship_Good_or_Bad_Practice_

Is censorship good or bad practice' Censorship is a dreadful practice. It stifles the rights to freedom of speech that we all deserve. It would go against what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. It stops the free flow of ideas and thoughts of people as people will only be able to talk about what the government wants people to. It makes the populace live in fear of violating the censors and going to jail. Also, it would inhibit the creativity of artists or musicians or authors or anyone who's involved in the arts since they only could work within the boundaries of the government. To put it quite bluntly, the act of censorship is oppression of the citizens on a national level. Censorship, as I said, is an affront to the freedom of speech that all American citizens deserve under the Constitution. A person should be allowed to say whatever they please without fear of prosecution. If they want to insult the government or the government's decisions, then they should be able to. Also, people should be allowed to watch, listen, read, or play whatever they want to without the government breathing down their necks and telling them what they can and can't say or do. Various people, back in the 1950's tried to censor Rock and Roll music because they thought it morally wrong. The main face of all of it was Elvis Presley. White adults were generally scared of him. Frank Sinatra said of him “His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people”. The FBI considered him “a definite danger to the security of the United States”. When he was shown on “The Ed Sullivan Show” for his third appearance, he was only shown by the waist up, since concerned people found his gyrations and pelvic thrusts crude and offensive That's simply wrong, as a grown adult should be able to listen or watch to whatever they please, without any sort of limits, even if a few people find it morally wrong. Another point is the debate when it comes to videogames. Some uninformed people want them banned altogether, since they claim they lead to acts of violence or crime, in general. Some people want them banned, just because they find them nasty or wrong, which is just silly. Other people want them to be regulated or monitored, which I don't agree with, but I can see the merits of the regulation. Adults and children both can handle these videogames. I can speak from experience, playing violent videogames has nothing to do with leading people to commit actual acts of violence. There's no correlation between the two. If people want to play videogames, they deserve that right. If the government ever did try to ban videogames or any form of art, for that matter, that would be oppression of the highest matter. Another example of censorship would be political correctness. This form of censorship tries to control what people can or can't say. Certain words aren't allowed to be said in certain types of environments, since some people would be offended. You know the ones: The N-word, The B-word, The F-word, The other F-word, The S-word, The R-word, the list goes on. These are just words which wouldn't have any meaning if you didn't let them and yet, if you say any of these words in a work environment, you get punished. People have been forced to undergo sensitivity training just because people said what was on their mind. It's truly sickening to see how our government does this, as we speak. While some people's toes may be stepped on, people should be allowed to speak their minds even if it isn't right or considered offensive to some people. We have the right to say what we want as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights. The act of political correctness ,while not as extreme as other kinds of censorship, it is still censorship and is an infringement to the freedom of speech we all have the right to. Another problem with censorship is the fact that it inhibits the free flow of ideas and thoughts. One of the great things about a democracy is the fact that people can talk with other people about anything. People have the right to choose who they want to be their political leaders. People can argue about other people about anything. Also, people can share opinions about the government even if they are negative opinions. They shouldn't have to worry about the government breathing down their necks. If people can't actively criticize and critique their own government without fear of punishment, then it's not a true democracy. Without the people, there is no democracy. History shows that if people aren't skeptical, things won't advance. People need to be skeptical for a government to work. At times, if the people aren't able to criticize and change their government, then they have shown to use force to achieve that change. The best example of this would be none other than The United States. The colonies did all sorts of things before resorting to violence to achieve the change they wanted. When Britain basically scoffed at everything they were doing, they officially declared their independence and, as you know, that lead to violence. If everyone was a-okay with their government, it wouldn't advance. They would still have their same out-dated practices they did hundred's of years ago. If full censorship ever happened, we would never get better. Our state of government would never change if they tried to control the flow of ideas and the flow of thoughts. If they tried to control how we think and what we think, that would just be immoral and certainly bad practice. Another point is the fact that people should be able to get any type of information without pressure from the government. If they wanted to learn about past mistakes of their country, then they should be able to. Even children should be able to acquire the information they need. If the people aren't well-informed about their political candidates or any other political-esque information, they can't be good citizens who serve their government. This is also one of the more disgusting forms of censorship. People should be allowed to be informed about their government or any other type of information they want to know without the fear of punishment or jail time. This also relates directly to having freedom of the press. If the press didn't have the ability to get the important information that people want to hear, that would make us no better than governments like China or North Korea. In North Korea, for example, they have a huge amount of censorship. They have been listed 168th out of 169th countries on the World Press Freedom Index Rankings. Their “press” is controlled entirely by the North Korean government. All the information comes directly from their government. Their government spouts out hate-filled propaganda and flat-out lies. In fact, the citizens have absolutely no internet access what so ever. You can only watch the TV frequencies and the radio frequencies that the government has allowed. That would be an example of censorship(among other things) that has gone on too far. Censorship will lead to people being afraid of speaking their minds. They'll live their lives in fear and terror of the government. They won't even want to leave their houses in fear of violating the censors the government would place. That would just be sad and not a government that I would want to live in. Once again, this would violate human rights violations and the standards our Founding Fathers set when they wrote Our Constitution. A democracy should be a place of freedom where people can express their ideas and thoughts. It shouldn't be a place of fear where the government can ban whatever they please. This would just be among the myriad of reasons why censorship is wrong and should not be practiced. Censorship would also curb the creativity of the arts and the people who perform it. Imagine a country where the films,TV,radio, theater, news, art, and any other forms of arts were censored unless they were approved by the government. Any form of art that criticized the government in any way would be banned. This relates to what was said about people needing to be skeptical of their government. If people can't enjoy thought-provoking forms of arts, then that would be yet another form of oppression that the censorship would cause. These are the sorts of things you would see go on in a country like North Korea. We live in a democracy and in a democracy, we should have the right to be skeptical of our government, the right to say what is on our minds, and the right to watch any sort of media without the government trying to control it. The Founding Fathers wouldn't have wanted it that way. That is what separates us from countries like North Korea. If we truly want to be a democracy, then we need to make sure censorship does not become like it is in North Korea or those other communist countries. That is why censorship is bad practice.