Censorship

Censorship is permissible when a communicative media might be considered to obtain objectionable, harmful or sensitive material. I do believe censorship is needed in some circumstances and specific means of communication. As an example the military censorship, this keeps confidential information away from enemy hands. Moral censorship, to some extend, is also necessary, this protects specifically children and young adults from viewing material that is to obscene for their age. I believe that censorship of some mediums such as television, internet, and theaters is required; but I also believe that censorship of books is a very different matter. Books are medium of communication that is not as exposed as the once mentioned before. I believe that an individual has the ability of controlling whatever he/she wants to read and I also believe that parents are the ones responsible for their children’s exposure to books. This is the reason why I feel no one has the right to tell an individual what he/she should read and also why I trust no one to deprive me of knowledge. In my opinion this kind of censorship is a violation of the first and most important amendment of the constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…”

For government, censorship comes in handed too many times; it permits them to control their public’s knowledge making them unaware of subjects that might cause rebellion. In this way they have an ignorant, easily manipulated audience. Throughout history there have been many debates of what should be exposed for the public or not. In earlier times it was much easier to control this by acts such as the burning of libraries since many few copies of a book were available. Nowadays the solution is censorship.

If I was a librarian I would extremely dislike pulling a book. As I remarked before, I am in total disagreement of depriving individuals of any substantial knowledge.