Censorship: Ineffective and Unnecessary (An essay for my English 10 Honors class.)

The United States of America is supposedly a free nation. However, nowhere does it officially mention how limited and censored that freedom is. Banning books, movies, music, ideas, etc. only creates curiosity in those who have been banned. Everyone believes in something different, therefore banning something because it goes against people’s beliefs is wrong. Most importantly, though, is that every person deserves the right to decide what is moral and what is not. Censoring is, in essence, taking away a person’s ability to think and choose on their own. Taking that ability away to any extent is wrong, ineffective, and unnecessary.

It has been argued that banning any kind of idea or material is right because humans are curious by nature. Those people believe that it is right to censor immoral material because if not banned people would be into it at the blink of an eye. This idea discredits the whole of the human race. Yes, if some material weren’t blocked there are people who would use it, see it, listen to it; there are also many people who use it anyway – they don’t care that it is blocked – it is still accessible. Telling people that something is bad and so it is forbidden is like saying “look, there’s a bowl of ice cream right in front of you, but you are not allowed to eat it”. There are some people that would walk away from the bowl of ice cream without a second thought, but there are others who would eat the ice cream even if they resisted for a while. Curiosity is part of human nature but so is endurance. If someone saw a bowl of ice cream and they had not been told not to eat it a good deal more would leave it alone because it wasn’t theirs or they had no interest in it. The people who will walk right by the ice cream need to be considered.

The United States of America is represented by many different religions. Freedom of religion is part of the constitution. This alone makes people think that they have every right to protect their beliefs and they do, but there comes a point where it is not only protecting one person’s beliefs but limiting or attacking another person’s. Some would say that it is not only their beliefs they are protecting but the traditions of the nation. Traditions need to change. Time passes and the world rotates and people need to adjust. Society now is much different than it was during the nineteenth century. Banning something because it is not Christian is like an atheist banning the bible. All people and all beliefs need to be recognized and when people are censoring things, banning books or movies or anything else because it goes against their beliefs, people of other beliefs are also being restricted. It takes away their choice and their right to choose.

Immanuel Kant was a European philosopher in the eighteenth century. He said that no action is right or moral if it takes away the reason of others. Basically, if someone does something the makes it so that someone else can not think or decide for themselves then that action is immoral and wrong. This concept shows that censoring things is wrong. The government creates lists of banned books, music, authors, and movies and takes away the right of people to decide for themselves whether or not that content is appropriate. This is the most important reason why censorship is bad. Every person needs to be able to think for themselves. Everyone needs to have the chance to make their own mistakes and to discover the world in their own way. To keep the bad things away from people is to shut them out from the bad things in the world. It creates false ideas in children and teens which end up hurting them in their futures.

For a free country, people of the United States of America are very restricted. Censorship in any form is wrong, ineffective, and unnecessary. While curiosity is part of human nature, restricting what a person can see, watch, listen to, and think only creates more curiosity and temptation. The idea that censoring things that go against a person’s beliefs is wrong as well. Last, but definitely not least, every person is born with the right to think for themselves and to censor things is to take that right away. People deal with censorship every day. Maybe if there wasn’t so much of it people would make better choices for themselves and learn about the world in a more truthful way.

Short and Slightly Random

So, I'm not at my happiest right now. Normally in this type of mood I would just sit around and think about how annoyed I was and how dumb it all was and all of that, but today I don't want to. Today I want to think about good things, productive things. Like... What I will get done tomorrow while avoiding the computer and other distractions:

1. Fill out my brainstorm sheet for Newspaper (which will require a bit of computer usage)

2. Clean my room to prepare for Panda coming over on Friday

3. Do my laundry (bet you didn't really care to know about that... or any of this really)

4. Read Act 1 of Julius Caesar for English

Hopefully I will get all of this done tomorrow so that I will be prepared for school on Thursday and not be in trouble come Friday. That would be nice.

Anyway, it's kind of late and I should be going to bed... Or at least reading. I hope everyone is having a great year so far and a great month and week. If not... Well... "The sun will come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that, tomorrow, there'll be sun." And there is your random but not-so-random Annie reference for the year.

"Oy with the poodles already!"

Ten brownie points to whoever gets that reference. Ha ha.

Goodnight everyone!

New... Everything.

January 11th. More than a week into the new year. Just a week until the new term begins. I'm sitting here writing on my new laptop with a new blog editing program that allows me to write and preview my posts without being on the internet. I'm also thinking about how I want to get the pictures off of my new camera and put them online. All around me I am surrounded by new, and to tell you the truth I don't mind. The main reason for that is that I am here, in my familiar home, with my family surrounding me. New things are never so bad if you have something familiar to hang on too.

This year... It feels different. Not just different from last year. Not just different in the way all new things are different. I get the feeling that big things are going to happen this year. Not just for me. Not just for those around me. I feel that this year is going to be a big year for the world. Is that dumb? I know it's kind of like... 'Well duh'. But I just think that the feeling is worth mentioning.

Isn't it? Isn't it worth mentioning when someone feels that there is something big going on? When someone has a feeling that things are going to change in a huge way. Even if they don't know how or why or whether it will be good or bad? I know that this year is going to bring about big big changes for my family. My littlest sisters will finish the sixth grade and start junior high this year. Elmo and my step sister, Shla, who lives in Georgia, will finish junior high/middle school and move on to high school. Izzy and I will get our driver's licenses. My car will hopefully get finished and Izzy will get one as well. I'll experience my first full year with my dad living in California. My half sister and my cousin will become the first people that I personally know who have graduated in my lifetime. And these are just the ones I can tell you about.

I can't say that everyone I know will still be the way they are now by the end of the year. In fact, I can probably tell you that not a single one of them will be. For my friends and my siblings there are major life changes coming around the corner. My extended family have always been and will always be mysterious to me. I will see them no more than ten times in the next year, as I have in the past. But maybe the level of communication we have reached in the last few months will help me get to know them a little bit better.

Who knows what this year is bringing us. All I can say is that 2009 is going to be a big one and I am so ready to see what it has in store for me. I am not the same person who wrote in this blog on January 13th of last year. I will not be this person in January next year. A person is constantly changing. The way I think about something today will not be the way I think about it tomorrow. Change is constant and continual. Other than gravity, I'd say it's the most consistent force in the universe.