Choose your censorship.
Offline Which form of censorship would you be most comfortable with?
Right-wing censorship: If you manage to get your hands on information concerning current military activities but are not a member of the armed forces, and subsequently have never signed any secrecy agreement, what you do with this data as far as making it public has to be cleared by higher powers. What you say about the way the country is run is another matter.
Left-wing censorship: If you have evidence that the ideology of the government, particularly in relation to minority groups and their general behaviour compared with the rest of the country, is not supported by facts, higher powers can censor this on grounds that it could amount to incitement. What you say about rival political ideologies and, to a lesser extent, the left is another matter.
Libertarian censorship: If you see someone in a public place, you may not use that information for any form of prosecution as it's an invasion of privacy. What you say about people, regardless of whether you have evidence to support it, is another matter.
Theocratic censorship: If you understand basic biology you should keep quiet about it because this guy who came to this church I go to says that evolution is the cause of all mass-murder and that anyway the world is only about six thousand years old and I don't quite remember the argument but it sounded convincing at the time and anyway we never had anything wrong in the world before people started criticising the authority of the Bible so we need to keep this poison out of our schools. Whether you have evidence to support the existence of the deity invoked by the government is another matter.
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I'm not particularly comfortable with any of these, I think that if you are in possession of information which you believe is of import you should not be restrained from sharing it, plain and simply. Whether you have judged its importance or the strength of your diplomacy in having spoken out accurately is another matter.
However, if I have to choose one of these, and I'm fairly certain you are asking me to, then I would choose the one which you have attributed left-wing. That's not to say I would choose to be idle in the event that a minority group was being treated unjustly by an authority, I wouldn't. It's only that I think presenting evidence against the authority wouldn't be necessary in that situation in order to act in the best interests of the community. Slinging mud at a faulty ideology is not the most effective way to dismantle it anyway, there are other, more widely effective means for that kind of information.
In the scenario you have presented as right-wing you don't specify the nature of the information but I presume you mean to imply that the information is sensitive and disturbing, in that case I can think of no better use for it than to expose it.
In the libertarian scenario the notion of using information for prosecution implies that one feels the information is of import to the public good, I say expose it and let the public then decide.
The theocratic case is just ludicrous, if you find reason to oppose evolution even though you know it, then why shoudn't someone else also even while they know it, again I see this information can be put to no better use than to expose it.
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Where did this come from? Almost all libertarians are OK with eyewitness testimony as long the eyewitnesses are not paid or made to be spies for the government.
Anyways, it 's not censorship since the information the spies obtain would still be in the public domain. It's just we don't want professional spies sending innocent people to jail and invading every one's privacy.
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Why are you assuming we need to have some form of censorship?
I don't know of any libertarians that are against eye witness testimony in court. I'm pretty sure that the 'libertarian censorship' you gave above is not supported by almost all libertarians. I'm pretty sure that you pulled that one out of your ass. Can you tell me of any libertarians that support what you have defined as libertarian censorship?
I don't get what this has to do with libertarianism. People like to gossip about others without supporting evidence regardless of their political ideologies. Why did you attribute this to libertarians specifically? I'm pretty sure that the left, the right and statists also will say things about people without supporting evidence.
Can you give an example of the left wing censorship you described? Leftists will sometimes cater to minorities, but I don't recall them censoring people who think that government ideology is not supported by facts.
Also keep in mind that the only censorship supported by most libertarians is keeping obscene things out of public view and avoiding clear and present danger. Anything short of showing pornography in a public place (obscene) or having the KKK march through a black neighborhood (clear and present danger) is protected speech according to many libertarians. 'Clear and present danger' also only counts if the danger will immediately happen, so we should only censor the KKK if their is a high likelihood of immediate violence.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Censorship should be illegal.
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Out of the 4, definitely ^^^
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I hate being filmed ok? ;-p
What Would Kharn Do?
What about democratic censorship? Give the option to the people and let the majority decide.
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There really isnt any 'form' of censorship; censoring is censoring.
Not all censoration is improper. For example: science teachers should be fired if he/she teaches 'intelligent design' and that the earth is 6000 years old for the simple reason that it is not science, but religion.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
I'm the only one that played along
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Eloise: Would you be happy with the right to censor an opposition party, purely by virtue of the fact that what they publish would disagree with the ideology of the current ruling party? That seems to be what you are saying.
For example, you could have two problems in the country which the current government has addressed by throwing money at. In one case this has been beneficial, in the other it has made the problem worse. The left-wing censorship approach is to stop anyone mentioning the second for the sake of political stability.
Information that a right-wing government would regard as suitable for censorship might include the number of guards posted around a military base, which particular cargo freighter is being used for people smuggling and when the police plan to intercept it, or even the name of a person on a witness-protection scheme. Would you regard making details of them public to be in the public interest?
EXC: So I'd assume Libertarians have no objection to CCTV in public places. I got a different impression elsewhere.
Anniet: I didn't say you had to. I asked which one you would be most comfortable with.
Jormungander: Why would the KKK marching through a public place be a clear and present danger?
Who gets to decide which views may and may not be expressed in a public place?
There are plenty of single-issue-politics groups who are more violent than them.
Oh is that what you meant? I couldn't see that meaning in what you wrote.
The answer is No, I wouldn't be happy with censorship of an opposition party, but then I'm not particularly happy with any form of censorship, one should always speak their mind, whether their "mind" is well taken by the listener is another matter.
All forms of censorship are in some way autocratic, I suppose, but I might mention that what you're suggesting here seems particularly autocratic, I don't see the left wing as necessarily entailing an authorised ideology you would seem to be omitting a large "southern" area of the political compass. Still I guess that's the name of the game.. censorship is a far edge sort of thing.
Are you, by chance, alluding to something real world contemporary here, David? just curious.
Anyhow, is political stability a particularly left wing interest? I don't see it that way, left wing interests are primarily the enrichment of the working class in the interest of a bottom up approach to socio-economic progress, political stability may be in the interests of providing the access an enriching social infrastructure, I suppose, but I wouldn't have considered it to be something of high priority in a left politic -- not over freedom of information anyway.
Political stability is a campaign interest rather than an ideological one, I'd say, any ruling government regardless of their political ide would be susceptible to the temptation of censorship in its name.
That said, I will retract my answer, I am less comfortable with that kind of censorship than I, first, may have indicated.
Hey, no way, are you trying to tell me that strategic counter-intelligence in military and diplomatic circumstances comprises the entire arm of conservative censorship while liberals would have every piece of writing which disagrees with them ceremonially burnt? You jest, right? Those are some extreme views you're implicating yourself in, there.
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I don't think the military in a democracy either like what people who disagree with them say or have any grand design to stop them expressing their views (despite what the juvenile 'the state is out to get me' activists think) but a right-wing government often likes to silence people who have information about ongoing police investigations (i.e. pre-trial) and the precise location of its troops at various times (e.g. on covert operations rather than at an airshow). Some would argue that if this information ends up in the hands of someone who is not bound by a secrecy agreement, that's the government's problem and it should be more careful next time. Others maintain that this is a case where the government can slap a gagging order on whoever plans to pass this information on.
Under left-wing censorship, the fact that Jews are not part of some global media-dominating crime cartel is something you are obviously free to state openly. On the other hand, mentioning that in some citites Afro-Caribean people are disproportionately responsible for violent crime when compared with the majority skin colour would constitute a form of racial incitement. It of course raises the question of how you address the deeper issues behind it if the phenomenon itself cannot be accurately described, but it's a form of censorship that the government in question seems happy with.
A right wing government also likes to censor anything they consider "immoral. " IE nudity, information about abortion, "bad words" , anything about sex especially homosexuality, etc.
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And which right-wing government in particular are you thinking of? I know of governments that don't want abortion to be available, but censoring views on it?
Incidentally Vastet, what should be done if someone broke into your place of residence and obtained information about you which you considered private? Obviously the police can prosecute them for breaking and entering, and you might even get whatever the thief stole returned to you. However, if censorship is illegal, would you really have no objection to the information being made public?
I'm talking about a doctor not being able to bring it up.
When can't a doctor 'bring up' abortion? In a conversation? When talking to a patient? Are you talking about censorship or the rules of a profession?
It's illegal to break into my residence and steal my stuff. If they broadcast it online or on tv or the radio(if people still use it that is), then they've just admitted to it. I can charge them, they go to jail, I get my stuff back or compensation if not possible. So what if they broadcast it? They condemned themselves in the process.
And if censorship were illegal, people would have a much better idea of how common certain things really are. As a result, I'd have nothing to fear in a backlash. Nothing could be obtained from my private stuff which would hurt me beyond losing my private stuff.
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