Censorship Should be Abolished

Well, this should be a most interesting topic; I'll do the best I can with what my opponent has given me; in the interests of fairness, allow me to provide a couple of small definitions before I begin, though the definitions themselves are probably self-evident. censorship - the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient. abolish - to put an end to Now, as opposed to presenting a CON case as to why censorship is a good thing, I believe that, during the course of refutation on my opponent's arguments, the necessity for censorship will become quite apparent. 1. The Freedom of Speech a. Clearly, the freedom of speech is not unlimited; this right generally pertains to the opinions expressed by an individual, or the information dispersed by an individual; however, hate speech being an example, free speech must often be limited in order to protect the public at large from distasteful, even offensive material; therefore, we can see that censorship is often necessary for the sake of safety, while still maintaining a reasonable level of free expression. b. This idea is further reinforced by my opponent near the end of his paragraph, in which he states that people ought not be punished for their speech unless it is "bullying, inciting a riot, inciting violence, causing panic... or threatening someone." The problem for my opponent is this: punishing someone for using this kind of harmful speech is censorship, something that my opponent claims to be looking to abolish; we can easily see the contradiction here. c. Ironically enough, I'd just like to point out that the only way to eradicate censorship is, in fact, to censor it. So, in the end, by affirming the resolution, my opponent has inadvertently given me the round. 2. The abolition of indecency laws, age limits, etc. a. What my opponent is advocating here is that, under the law, children ought to have access to violent and sexually explicit materials (as he makes the argument that age limits on violent movies, pornography, etc. ought to be abolished); anyone should be able to understand that a child should not be exposed to these kinds of materials, especially at such early ages; the psychological effects of being exposed to pornography and violence will tend to remain with a child through adolescence and puberty; my opponent is advocating that we allow our youth to be so easily corrupted by a culture that is addicted to sex and violence, even as a means of profit, and doesn't care about casualties along the way [http://www.zenit.org...] [http://www.forerunner.com...]. My opponent may try to come back and say that parents need to watch over the content accessed by their kids, not the government; but remember one thing: parental censorship is STILL censorship. b. My opponent advocates abolishing indecency laws as well; let me clear up what these laws cover: my opponent is asking us to abolish laws which ban things like public urination, indecent exposure, or sex/masturbation in public, to name a few things; so, if you agree with my opponent that lewd, uncivil, offensive behavior ought to be allowed in full view of the public (again, including easily-harmed children), then yes, vote Pro. This concludes my opening set of arguments. There's far more to be said on the subject, but I wanted to keep the arguments very basic, and very simple; after all, I might as well save the 'A' material for later rounds. I look forward to my opponent's next arguments, which I'm sure will be most... interesting.