--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The three of you have claimed that those > who have called on ABC to fix the falsehoods > in "Path to 9/11" or cancel the broadcast > are advocating "censorship." > > That is appallingly ignorant, and a > misconception that is actually dangerous > to free speech. > > Censorship is when some authority--usually > a governing body--*requires* an entity to > remove material it finds offensive and has > the power to enforce its order.
This self-serving, hypocritical crap is so dangerous as to require a second post. Censorship does not require any "authority" to impose it. It can just as easily be imposed by a group of people with no authority what- soever, using either legitimate or illegitimate means of exerting pressure on the people or publications they want to censor, or the distributors of those publications. A classic ploy in many communities regards the sale of magazines like Penthouse and Playboy. Groups of "concerned citizens" (read "uptight Christians with a bug up their ass about nudity and sex) send threatening letters to every store in town that sells magazines, telling them that if they sell Playboy or Penthouse, this group will initiate a boycott and keep anyone from buying *anything* from the stores that still sell these magazines. Voila. No more sales of these magazines. This has been done (successfully, sadly) in *hundreds* of US small towns. Now let's look at what Judy herself proposed for this 911 TV special. She advocated pulling it off the air and then showing it *after* the election on pay TV. This is clearly in *exactly* the same ballpark as the Playboy scam above. It's an attempt to censor *material* that the critics don't like by controlling *access* to that material. And in both cases, if the ploy is successful, the material itself has been censored (failed to reach an audience), with absolutely no "authority" involved. There are MANY ways to censor. Judy is trying to present a stilted, dishonest, and hypocritical "definition" of what censorship to weasal out of the obvious fact that SHE advocated censor- ship for political reasons on this forum, only a few days ago. In Judy's world, if she can rewrite the definition of being a True Believer she can pretend that she's not one. Similarly, it seems that she believes if she can rewrite the definition of being a censor, she can pretend she's not one of them, either. She is. The facts stand on their own. Only a few days ago, Judy was calling for pressure to be put on a national TV network to pull the show that she didn't like off the air and *not* allow it to be broadcast before the elections. *Then* she wanted it shown only on pay TV channels with a limited and much smaller audience. That's censorship, folks. It's *exactly* the same ploy as the Playboy scam. You censor not by editing the content of the article or show or magazine you object to (although she advocated *that*, too) but by making the article or show or magazine UNAVAILABLE. THAT is what she advocated. Check the archives. Judy's definitely a censor, and not even honest enough to admit it. So much for her rants about honesty and truthfulness... To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
