Tyler+M’s+2015+OpEd+Article

Won't somebody please think of the children?!!!??!!? I apologize for the ugly center alignment I couldn't figure out how to change it. Many people seem to hold the belief that hiding things from us will better our society as a whole. I know a few people who shared this philosophy, all really great guys I'm sure you know, their pictures are below.

Censorship in the United States and other countries isn't as bad as it was in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, but the suppression of speech and thought does exist. The United States has had times when the 1st amendment has been violated by the federal government. During World War 1, unpatriotic speech was a crime, and for a period after World War II, any dissident socialist or communist thoughts were a crime. Not to say we don't enjoy freedom of speech and expression today, which we do. It is a right that we shouldn't take for granted, since many nations in the world do not grant this same right to citizens. People in positions of power know the usefulness of censorship to create a world where thoughts contrary to the ones they wish to instill in the public are basically nonexistent to the people, or you can depict any opposing ideology as an evil in the world creating a very black and white worldview. This is exactly why censorship in all forms is counterproductive to the development of humanity. Censorship is a tool to obscure reality and attempt to create a consensus among the people to push their own agenda. Freedom of information is important to create a society in which you have all opinions contributing to the overall discussion, a truly democratic society can not exist with censorship. I want neo-nazis to be able to openly express their opinions, they have every right to do so, and I want to hear what they have to say about their opinions. In modern society, censorship exists in nations that are supposed to be bastions of peace, freedom, and democracy. Australia, the country the UN lists as the second most developed country in the world, is notorious for censorship of movies, TV shows, and video games with content of a violent or sexual nature. Their reason for this, of course, is to protect the children. Sounds great, young children probably shouldn't be watching or playing anything with very violent or sexual content, but instead of censoring this content for the adults who may wish to consume it as well, you could try and do your job as a parent and keep your children from consuming media clearly not intended for children. Censorship on TV is something we're accustomed to, but is putting a bleep over a word really doing anything, we're all filling in the blanks in our head. I especially don't understand why the human body has to be censored, why is that of all things something we are so afraid of children seeing? When I advocate the abolition of censorship, I am thinking of the children. I'm thinking the children shouldn't live in a world where reality is hidden from them "for their sake." Sweden, a nation with a model Barack Obama says he admired during a visit, recently passed a law criminalizing criticism of Sweden's very open immigration policy. This means journalists who might want to express their opinion that taking in thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa should be secondary to fixing the nation's domestic issues are branded racist criminals, and shouldn't be showing their face any more. A state where journalists are silenced by the government is a police state. Just the other day in Russia a vocal critic of president Putin was murdered in broad daylight in Moscow, this wasn't just a random killing. The police are going to take some poor sap and say he did it and throw him in jail to cover up the fact that they will silence any dissident thoughts. In the wake of the recent Charlie Hebdo shooting, there has been a surge of support for freedom of the press. But these are in stupid foreign countries, and people who aren't American are less human than us obviously. Well there is the Patriot Act, but that's another story. You have the right to criticize the government, you have the right to want change, you have the right to blaspheme, you have the right to vocalize your opinions.