100% Anti Censorship- Can It Be Justified.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. Benjamin Franklin

I have always had a problem with censorship, ever since I read 1984 when I was a kid, I have squirmed about government interference in our lives. An argument for total non government interference would be arguing for anarchy, something I am also not comfortable with so I cannot say my stance on that issue is absolute but I have come to the conclusion that I am 100% against censorship.

You would think that would be a fairly easy decision to make and stick by but actually I have discovered that it is far more complicated than I at first gave it credit for. For example a big test of my resolve came with the recent news of a game from Japan that involved the raping of a woman and her two daughters. Yuck. I had to have a good think about that. Do I think people have the right to play this game? Through firmly gritted teeth, I have to say ‘yes I do’. Now before people start telling me what this means about my character let’s look at my reasons for this.

Do I support rape? Well clearly not. Neither do I support the killing of prostitutes to steal back your cash after you have slept with them. Or punching innocent people in the face or running them down in a car just for the fun of it. I am actually not even terribly keen on cheating at poker.

The two things we need to take into account when making our decision on this issue are: when you are playing a game you are not actually doing those things, it is not real. I have shouted this long and hard and as big a test of my belief as this nasty little game is, I cannot back down from that now. It is not real, it is playing, no one gets hurt.

The other thing is that I don’t have the right to inflict my moral judgements on others, who am I to say the line has been crossed? If we are not 100% anti censorship then whose hands do we put the decision making process in. I am afraid I just do not think that there is a safe enough pair of hands available. I may well be able to find someone who agrees with my morals entirely but who says my morals are exactly correct and where does it leave the rest of you?

I am sure this game will not be the only thing to test my resolve on this issue, some people have a funny idea (in my opinion) of what constitutes fun, but whatever comes along I am going to fight for the freedom for grown adults to play it if they wish to. Then (if it is bad enough) I will hope like hell that the majority of right minded people don’t want to play it and it fails miserably in the financial stakes.

That is the best I can do, I am afraid that in a straight out fight – liberty wins over security every time for me.