Causes and Censorship

The virtual community/venue known as 'Facebook' or, more designated more charmingly as 'The Book of Faces' by my daughter is an interesting phenomenon for many reasons.  Unlike 'groups' or forums I visited in the early years of the internet, it embraces ALL things, including politics, social trends, gaming and simply gossip both public and private.

Many special interest groups as well as commercial advertisers piggyback on Facebook to reach a wide range of users.  One of the interesting aspects of Facebook is that 'Friendship' allows advertisers and political interest groups to target users it might not reach otherwise as one can have FB Friends who are quite the opposite of oneself in terms of social, economic, national and political affiliations.   Gaming in particular draws together individuals who ordinarily might not be 'Friends' for whatever reason.

The political interest groups involved in Facebook use, inter alia, a platform named 'Causes'.  One cannot participate in 'Causes' without giving the platform the right to post on ones own Timeline.  What this means is that ANY Friend can post a petition on MY Timeline unless I prohibit Causes completely from being part of my internet experience.  As Causes once in a blue moon has an active petition that I may wish to sign, I find myself in a position where I must monitor my Facebook page constantly in order to 'hide' petitions from other users that I do not wish to advertise, promote or sign.

It is here that I wish to make my position clear with respect to Censorship.  Many of the petitions circulating on Facebook deal with Censorship, pure and simple.  I personally am absolutely opposed to any sort of cruelty to Animals, but cannot espouse censorship of any kind.  Petitions that ask Facebook to remove a page or user because he/she/it promotes or accepts cruelty to Animals are advocating Censorship.  Cruelty to Animals and especially Animals particularly dear to my own heart may make me incandescent with rage, but I would be more inclined to mete out the same treatment to one who has been cruel to an innocent and helpless creature than ever to censor him or her.  (Fantasies of meting out a rude justice to a person who has been cruel to an Animal are nothing more than wishful thinking, by the way.  For better or worse,  I am not a Vigilante.)

I am a deeply spiritual individual and embrace a number of religious traditions to some extent, although organised religion for the most part frowns upon individuals who wish to worship in more than one Church/Mosque/Circle of Sacred Stones/Whatever.   On the other hand, I refuse to participate in witch-hunts against those who are irreligious or otherwise disrespectful of any religious belief, icon or 'sacred cow'.  I may find those people or attitudes personally repugnant but I would not sign any petition to censor any voice raised against religion.

This is not cowardice.  This is a matter of principle.  How can I expect to have the freedom to voice my opinion if I do not allow the same freedom to every one else?  The right to freedom of speech MUST be unequivocal and unrestricted or it is not true freedom of speech.  That is why I am diametrically opposed to the concept of 'political correctness' and 'hate crimes' based on name-calling.  A thorn by any other name is nonetheless a thorn.  Excrement is excrement whether you call it that or use a more basic term.  I do believe, however, that a person should possess the right to use ANY word or term, however pejorative.

If a crime of violence is committed, then action should be brought simply for that crime and not for any social or political attitude that might be inferred by any name-calling at the time the crime was committed.  If a man or woman commits murder, surely the punishment for that is sufficient.  Why should certain special interest groups or minorities be able to heap added punishment upon the perpetrator simply because he or she is considered a bigot or politically offensive by current standards?

Israeli law, for example, prohibits use of the term 'Nazi' to describe any Jew.  I would submit, humbly, that many official Israeli practices towards the Palestinians  are identical to those promoted by the Third Reich towards the Jews and other minorities.  Does Censorship improve human nature or somehow dispose of negative attitudes and actions?  Absolutely not.  What it promotes is inequality.  When a group of Black thugs commit assault towards a Caucasian and call him/her a 'Honky', the 'hate crime' legislation never goes into effect but should the positions be reversed, should a group of Caucasian thugs commit assualt towards a Black and call him/her a 'Nigger', it will be considered and prosecuted as a 'hate crime'.  Is this just?  Is this equality?  Is this even desirable?  Assault is an actionable crime.  I cannot see any justification really for making a crime against one sort of individual more heinous than it would be against another simply because of name-calling.  At the end of the day, name-calling is what fuels the ability to designate a crime as a 'hate crime'.  You can dress it up any way you like, but that is the truth.

I do not believe in discrimination by reason of race, religion, gender or creed or anything else, but I do not believe in Censorship or the concept of 'hate crimes' either.  It constitutes a sort of reverse discrimination in practice.  Furthermore, I do not think it acts as a deterrent of any kind, which means that its only effect is to give  a crime against a member of a special group a greater value than the same crime against an ordinary individual.