Day: January 18, 2012

Censorship is one of those things that we all say is bad. Yet we engage in censorship every day. We choose what we want to see & hear, we choose what our children see and hear too.

This kind of normal censorship is reasonable and in fact demonstrates our ability to be responsible for our actions

Small groups protesting each other CENSOR each other by one group shouting louder than the other. In recent years, a new tool has been added to the small group Censorship tool box… It’s the single word RACIST! Even in this situation we accept that tempers flare and even appreciate the passionate expression of someones differing beliefs.

We know that we can, if we choose look up both sides of a protest and we can evaluate and decide for ourselves whose opinion we agree with. The news media will present both sides in an unbiased way. We can read about the protest in the newspaper and have all the facts laid out before us.

CAN we?

Do we really trust the talking heads on TV? Do we really believe what is printed in the news paper?

I think the answer is more often than not NO! Part of the wonder of the internet aside from giving voice to every village idiot, is that we also get information. Tons of it, sometimes completely unfiltered.

That unfiltered, un-sanitized news is often our best insight into the truth of a situation. In our country our freedoms are highly dependent on a free flow of information from all sources.

Which brings us to…