Censoring Filthy Dirty Muck

 I have always been on the anti-censorship side of the argument.  I don’t believe it is the right of the media or government to control where our sense of morals are, or should be.  It should be our own right, or responsibility, to decide for our family and us a sense of decency and morals.  If we begin to allow the government to tell us what is right or what is wrong, what is allowed or prohibited then we in a way allow them to control our way of thinking.  While I encourage the labeling of films, music, television, and other forms of media I do not support the complete censorship of media. 

            It is our responsibility to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.  Parents what to be able to protect their children from violence or other graphic material and can easily do so today with the use of parental controls.  On most cable programs, parents have the opportunity to block certain content from their children’s view.  The same can be said with the Internet, certain firewalls can be set up to avoid certain websites from being accessed, only with a password can these sites be viewed.  Most legally downloaded music that contains vulgar language has an edited version that uses less offensive language than can be downloaded instead, on sites like iTunes and Napster.  With all of these options out there I don’t think the government needs to tell us what to do, or what is right; we are capable of making our own decisions.

            Not everything can be censored from home however.  I do not know of anyway that a certain radio station can be blocked, so maybe censorship in this particular media would be acceptable.  Still in this situation, it would be our own judgment and decision to choose which stations we listen to and those we don’t.  This is the case for normal AM/FM stations, however with newer forms of radio such as XM and Sirus Radio, more explicit content is available on some channels.  These forms of radio are becoming more and more available as it becomes more popular in vehicles and in homes.  However some companies take it upon themselves to censor our material for us.