Topic: 1st Amendment
The Nature of Censorship What is Censorship, and what kinds of people or bodies can engage in it?by Frankie D.
(libertarian)
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
For many years now, I've been hearing statements reported in the news very similar to the following, John's complaint was that the radio station wouldn't give him time to express his views,' or Jean was not allowed to make a political speech at her private high school graduation,' or, Barbara was fired from her company due to making inflammatory statements in public about a non-job related topic,' and John's, Jean's and Barbara's cry is Censorship!' But is it? What is Censorship, and what kinds of people or bodies can engage in it?
Censorship is the addition of coercion to the process of the dissemination of ideas, either to force true ideas to not be spread, or to force false idea to be spread. And there is only one entity that has the ability to achieve this coercion on a system-wide basis. It is the government. Only the government has the power to forcibly stop the spread of ideas via the media or other means of communication, or to force media to spread lies. It does this through the use of force, or the threat of force, against those whose disseminate ideas.
Why is this true? Why is it only the government that can be correctly said to enforce Censorship? Because only the government has the ability to unleash the destructive forces of the army and the police against its own citizens to force compliance with its edicts. A private individual, or even a large media conglomerate, has no ability to legally force such compliance. If they were to try, in a moral free society, the government would be called in to stop their initiation of such force.
Let's look at the above examples to try and determine why they are not censorship, and what it would take in order to make them be censorship. John's complaint is that a given radio station won't let him express his views. This is not censorship because John is free to find another radio station that sympathizes with him and his views and will give him a platform to express them. Or he is free to find another media outlet to disseminate his ideas from. Or he is free to create his own media outlet to disseminate his ideas. What he is not free to do, at least in a moral society, is to cry Censorship, and run to the government to have them force the owners of the first radio station to air his, John's, views.
Jean claims that her school must allow her to express any opinion at one of the school's functions, or else that is censorship. But it is not. Jean doesn't own the school, and has no right to dictate the policies of the school to its owners. They are not required to furnish her a platform for her ideas. And she is free to find a media outlet that will let her express her ideas, including that the school refused her such a venue. Or just as John, she can create her own medium to spread her ideas.
In the case of Barbara, she has made statements outside of work in a public manner which had consequences for her continued employment. Is this Censorship? Again, it is not. She is still free to express her ideas. And she is still free to find other employment, or to create her own business. She simply has no rights to attempt to force the owners of her previous company to continue to employ her through the government, at least not in a moral society.
In a free, moral society, any business that treats its employees or customers poorly will find out quickly that to do so will have an adverse affect on new and repeat business. In all three cases, if the school or radio or employer were deemed by many in their community to have been in the wrong against any of our three, their business would suffer the community's ostracization.
What would turn these scenarios into Censorship would be if John or Jean or Barbara were not permitted by the government to find another media outlet, or to create their own outlet. Censorship is an action that can only be performed through the abuse of governmental powers by agents of the government.
In a moral, free society, there is no way for a private individual or company to enforce Censorship because all individuals are free to create their own outlets or find other outlets. Sadly, one of the best ways to destroy a moral, free society is to confuse the meaning and nature of Censorship.
Frankie D. Are you thinking about going Galt? Want to get together with other freedom loving folks to try and change the government from the inside? Visit the Free State Project, then Live Free or Die!
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Frankie D. only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Frankie D. is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
In a way, Jean does own the school; at least if it's a public school (and for most students it is).
If it's a public school it's owned by the citizens, students are basically forced to be there and only hand-picked ideas are allowed to be spread. Surely this meets the criteria for your definition of censorship.
Also, I don't believe censorship always applies to the government. My personal definition is the prevention of the spread of ideas via coercion. Two examples would be people burning books that offend them or threatening someone to keep them from talking about something.
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