In a democracy, government should not try to censor/edit/restrict the Tv content...

A threat to our national security would be revealing troop positions, weaknesses that could lead to attacks on us, plans for building bombs, ect. Do I really need to give you a full list? //Refutations\ //When a government tries to regulate Television programs it deems unsuitable to be watched by the masses, basically it gives the following message: You are old enough to decide who should run your country, but not old enough to decide what to watch on television.// All you are doing here is saying how you feel. You feel that the government is deeming us too young to decided what to watch yet your own opinion doesn't hold much water. I could say that "It is the government showing they care". Now it is just your word against mine. Nothing more, nothing less and there is no reason to vote on this. How does it say "I'm better than you ignorant people..."? Again it is you saying X whereas I say Y. We are at a stalemate. //A government has been put into place to run the country. Regulating the television content is in no way its jurisdiction. If it tries to censor the say of some, for whatever reason, it is, curtailing the right to speech of some individual, which is not its job.// The government's job is to protect the people and if the information that is being shared is dangerous in anyway it IS inside the government's jurisdiction to censor media. (I will touch on this later) //A producer/ or any citizen of a country for that matter should be able to express his/ her views on the television, it is entirely upto the *public* whether they want to watch it or not. Censoring/ editing/ restricting the views of any proportion of the society is in direct contradiction of the right to freedom of speech, which is a fundamental right in a democracy.// What of network television? They censor what is on TV. They decided which shows will be aired and which will not. That is a form of censorship yet you, being so for freedom of speech, have no outrage over that. That sounds somewhat hypocritical to me. So here we see that my opponent provides no impact to censorship as well as just stating what he feels. No of this even stands up to the lowest form of scrutiny and thus we must leave it behind. //Arguments\ There are numerous reasons why the censor ship of TV is good. First off, let's say you have a 5 year old kid who is watching Saturday morning cartoons and then a commercial for a Fleshlight comes on. The commercial entails two people engaging in pornographic activities. You would not be opposed to the TV stations or even the government saying that is unacceptable and getting it removed. Nextly, what of child porn? Child porn is entirely banned yet you are (most likely) not opposed to that. So here you have a choice. You can concede that censorship is good which would mean that censoring child porn is good OR you could say censorship is bad (which is your argument) and thus censoring child porn is bad. It's your choice here. Thirdly, what if we just allowed the full blue prints for nuclear bombs to float around? Terrorists might get their hands on them and thus be able to build a nuclear bomb. And what is the impact of a nuclear terrorist attack? Extinction. [1] Fourthly, with out any form of censorship troop positions are liable to be revealed and with revealed troop positions comes loss of life. It is unacceptable to all our soldiers to die because the government could not keep their position safe. Here is where we see that censorship does fall within the duties of the government. The government's job is to protect the citizens of it's country but if it cannot censor troop positions or other information of that nature, it will not be protecting it's citizens. Fifthly, making some things illegal to say is beneficial to our society. For example, it is illegal to say FIRE in a crowded area because it causes a panic and loss of life ensues. This is a form of restriction yet it benefits our society and this, even if you disagree with everything else, is enough to vote Con. //Overview\ I have shown that censorship is good because a) it prevents our children from seeing sexually explicit commercials on TV b) it limits or eliminates the abuse of children in child porn c) it helps prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear blue prints d) it protects the lives of troops e) it limits what can be said as to protect the lives of civilians. First off what must be said is that all of these would fit into my opponent's framework of "respecting the essence of democracy" because they aren't proposing any other form of government. Nextly, what my opponent must do to win is to either a) show that all of these examples are unimportant or b) protecting our children from sexually explicit commercials is bad, limiting or eliminating the abuse of children is bad, preventing terrorism is bad, protecting troops is bad and protecting citizens lives is bad. I await my opponent's response. [1] http://www.the3nr.com...