Censorship the Notion of Censorship Term Paper

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In short, individuals in favor of an increase in government control over censorship recognize that they must necessarily walk a fine line between their aims and violating American's freedoms of expression. However, they stress the dual responsibility of our government: to both uphold our rights and our moral codes. Kimball concludes, "Society had an interest in protecting free speech and free circulation of ideas. It also has an interest in protecting the moral sensibility of its citizens, especially the young. Freedom without morality degenerates into the servitude of libertinage." (Roleff 21). Still, it is difficult to make a case as to why the government in particular should be the entity that makes the ultimate moral decisions of society, when they have explicitly limited themselves from such pronouncements within the Constitution.

An opposing viewpoint has been put forward writer Paul Masters who insists, "Today, the charge down that path [towards governmental censorship] is led by the speech police who assail popular culture as the weapon of an 'institutional elite' that 'wraps themselves in the First Amendment' and are bent on destroying society by entertaining it to death." He goes on to say, "This insanity begins as always in a rush to save the populace from the influence of coarse language and entertainment." (Roleff 24-25). Essentially, he argues that the continuing crusade to, in effect, save society from itself is completely groundless in its presumption that swearing and mock-violence can lead to any sort of social meltdown.

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He maintains that Americans are perfectly capable of making rational decisions concerning images and material that they either do or do not wish to be exposed to (Roleff 22). The complication with the perspective held by Masters and his contemporaries is, obviously, that children are not necessarily the rational citizens that most adults believe themselves to be. Additionally, his endorsement of allowing the media to control itself demands that much material is likely to be broadcasted that parents will deem inappropriate for their children.

Obviously, the best way to uphold ideals that many Americans believe to be strong moral standards is to allow these standards to be set and enforced by parents and guardians. Involving the government puts moral strains on the institution that can only lead to complications and misapplications. Providing the media with the primary responsibility carries the problem that the media is guided only in the direction of profit -- and "smut" is profitable. The trouble with allowing all of the responsibility to fall to parents is that they cannot possibly hope to be able to screen all of the information their children are exposed to. Yet, parental controls on television and the Internet are a big step in the right direction. Similar and more expansive controls need to be implemented to make the censorship of material in the United States both just and moral......

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