The Past Revised: The Dangers Of Censorship

John Milton said, "[It is almost] as good to kill a man as to kill a good book; [he] who kills man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself." Liberal censorship must be abolished. The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...etc." Granted, the Amendment made no mention of censorship beyond the government, however the problem of censorship does extend further than our government preventing a document from being published and distributed. One might argue that while the First Amendment gives us the freedom of speech and of the press, it does not give us the right to force others to hear what we say or read what we write. This is true, but if a book is banned from libraries and bookstore shelves, then we are not giving those people who choose to hear and read the opportunity to do so.

It is unfortunate that, as a rule, many of the people who challenge controversial books have not even bothered to read them. When Christian missionaries came to America, for example, to convert the natives, they destroyed the books and records of the people because they were considered promoters of bigotry and heresy. In that moment of tragic narrow-mindedness, a large portion of our continent's history was lost.

At the Dartmouth College Commencement on 14 June 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: "Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed... How will we defeat Communism unless we know what it is?..." Of course many words may be substituted with 'Communism.' There are other ways to deal with offensive issues than to simply take every book off the shelf that has the slightest possibility of being provocative in some way. Sometimes offense is necessary for people to be educated. We need to learn to discern between liberal censorship