From: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 18:47:16 -0800 (PST)
To: bryce@digicash.com
Subject: Re: Need a new word for non-violent-censorship
In-Reply-To: <199611081134.MAA16008@digicash.com>
Message-ID: <199611090303.VAA00236@smoke.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> I often have the same difficulty when speaking with
> Objectivists.  They define "censorship" as "silencing the
> speaker by force", which is a fine and useful definition, but
> suppose we want to talk about a similar phenomenon which does
> not involve force?  For example, the magnate who owns all the
> newspapers, television stations, bookstores and movie theatres
> in a small town decides that never again will homosexuality be
> publically mentioned in any of these venues.  Force?  No.
> "Censorship"?  Not by _that_ definition, but what _is_ it?

     "Monopoly", or editorial policy and it is solved by buying a press of 
some kind, from a letter press to a photocopier, and printing all the news 
he does, and doesn't.

> We need a new word, or else we have to continue using

     No, we just need to use the words we have properly. 

> "censorship" to mean both of those things.  I sometimes use
> "violent-censorship" and "non-violent-censorship" in
> conversation.

     "Violent-censorship" is when you [shoot beat kill] the speaker, "non-
violent" is when you imprison, or consficate the means of speech/replication of 
speach, or otherwise "silence" without physcial force. Then you have censorship 
by intimidation, which is a little harder to qualify. If I threaten to burn 
your press if you talk about Crypto, or print Crypto algorythms, is that 
censorship? IMO, yes. If you _choose_ not to discuss Crypto because you 
understand (or are afraid of) the implications of it, that is NOT censorship,
any more than my refusal to discuss sports because I can't understand the appeal
or because I think that sports are generally a bad thing.  
 
     Choice is not censorship, removal of choice is. 


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com