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.
