Well of course the fact that a thing is legal in some places does not an argument make. Because that argument would be bereft of the the context of the specific places and the circumstances which lend that argument credence.Originally Posted by Syme
I don't see how the fact that some censorship is legal in some places makes any argument whatsoever in support of censorship being "right". To me, there's no relationship at all. Why do you think that legality is a powerful argument in support of rightness?
To illustrate my point, consider this. Do you:
a) Accept the Right to freedom of speech, as that protection is circumscribed in the U.S. constitution, to be just and essentially congruent and consistent with a real right to freedom of speech?
AND
b) Believe that the actual censorship of, for instance, paedophilic materials etc, which occurs in the U.S. is not inconsistent with this protection?
If so, then although the actual justification for this censorship lay beyond the scope of a) and b), with the outlined context we can fairly claim without further argument that there is a demonstrated consistency and precedent in the United States for the just (with respect to the protection of freedom of speech) censorship of distasteful materials.
We can obviously build up this argument further in other contexts, and also taking to account the nature of the U.S. legislative, social and legal circumstances, and therefrom construct a powerful argument that says, in the U.S. for instance, where there is a demonstrated record of generally consistent and rightful censorship of certain materials, that any given case of long standing censorship is also likely rightful, and also consistent with the U.S. constitutional right to freedom of speech (assuming again that you support the fundamental thrust of this protection).
Again, I restate make my earlier point that is a powerful argument in favour, but I don't claim that it is a sufficient argument in itself.
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