I'm conflicted; I believe that censorship is wrong, but I also believe that hating others on the basis of their race is wrong.

So is it wrong to censor books about racial hate?

I can't decide, so maybe somebody else can help me.

Book-burning sucks. If you don't like a book, don't read it. We have this neat thing called free will.

AOL posting for a second here:

ME TOO!

You can't tell people what to do, jjhlk. Censorship is wrong, whether you ban 'Justine', 'Huckleberry Finn' or 'Mein Kamf'.

Not only is there the moral issue, there is the practical issue of, well, you open up a dangerous precedent. You ban 'obscene', suddenly, everyone wants this or that declared 'obscene'.

Is 'The Story of O' obscene? Yes. But what about 'Lady Chatterly's Lover'? Hell, the Bible is obscene!

Same applies for racism. There are those uber-PC cretins who want Huck banned because it contains the word 'nigger'. Do we go that far? Lines are hard to draw.

I like my freedom. I want and deserve the right to walk down the street ranting about the Commies, the Jews and the bicycists. And I'll fight for it.

Yeah, but, some people are impressionable.

I know that the idea of hating people based on their colour is not something anybody will buy into. Because EVEN if they were raised even poorly they will probably realise this. And any intelligent person should too.

Now I've forgotten if I had some point afterwards.. (I think that the phrase "Yeah, but..." seems as if I was going somewhere, but I guess I wasn't)

That makes sense, in no case at all should a book be censored. But then about minors... should a child need permission from a parent to read Hamlet, Macbeth, etc at school? They ARE minors. But then again, they aren't given the right to read the books without their parent's permission if THEY want to.

It just seems to me that democracy has some undemocratic things about it.

Edit: The reason I posted was partially because I know that lots of 'democratic' countries ban certain books. Even Canada and America. (i'm not implying that they are the most moral, they're just what I know the most of) I think you can still own the banned books... but you cannot sell them, and I don't think you can even import them. But I think you can still bring them into the country, just not if its to sell or anything. arrgh complicated useless rules.

"Yeah, but, some people are impressionable."

True enough. But then, why not ban all revolutionary political literature? Where does it end?

I verge on commiting the 'slippery slope fallacy', but I think I have a point.

"That makes sense, in no case at all should a book be censored. But then about minors... should a child need permission from a parent to read Hamlet, Macbeth, etc at school? They ARE minors. But then again, they aren't given the right to read the books without their parent's permission if THEY want to. "

Maybe. Like the V-chip! Well, I think parents should be given a say in raising their kids. So, yeah, I suppose.