Summary: The Negative Consequences Of Censorship

In the twenty-first century society has found lots of things to argue over. In the US especially, people are concerned with the moral aspects involved in touchy subjects such as stem-cell research, gay marriage, and even more recently terrorist interrogation methods. On-going debates rage in all of these subjects and a question arises: should we, the people of the United States, allow or frown upon the very thought of them? Censorship is another current debate that takes on many forms. Censorship could happen in just about any medium such as television, the internet, printed material, radio, even in speech itself. The First Amendment of the Constitution allows the freedom to speech and press, but it's not that black and white. Negative consequences arise since the United States has such open policies when it comes to speech and press. This all poses one big question. Would US censorship practices be beneficial to the public interest? Freedom of Speech is one of the cornerstones of US democracy. It is protected in the First Amendment but there are still currently some restrictions on what people can and cannot say. For instance
People question if it is a good idea to print and publish photos and articles that are to some too grotesque. People against wartime censorship argue that the government can use censorship to essentially blind the public from the severity of war. In effect it deprives them of the truth, and even if the public does not want to see these violent images they should still be accessible. People against wartime censorship have a mentality that citizens and government officials need to know what might be lost before they commit some many innocent lives to the cause. "A country needs to be reminded that an 18-year-old has just died, and that Memorial Day and Veterans' Day are not just days for picnics at the beach," stated a journalist with the Philadelphia Inquirer