Censorship Should be Abolished

Since I'm a libertarian, I'd like to explain what a libertarian society would be. A libertarian society is where the laws that apply are that you can't assault or kill someone, damage their property, or steal. 'My opponent again presents us with a clear-cut contradiction; he claims that free speech ought to be unlimited because the Founding Fathers intended it to be so, but later states that "Hate speech should not be punishable unless i[t] incites law-breaking"; what my opponent fails to understand is that, by definition, hate speech IS the kind of bullying that my opponent seeks to eliminate; but the real contradiction, as I stated, is quite clear. He claims that freedom of speech ought to be entirely unlimited, yet later admits that some speech ought to be legally punishable. ' Once again, my opponent is ignoring my argument, and making his points off of the title instead. The title of a debate doesn't cover the whole argument, what you should be focusing on are the actual arguments themselves. Hate speech is not always bullying, someone could stand on a street corners and ramble on about how much they hate Islam, but that wouldn't be bullying. What would be bullying is saying it to someone's face repeatedly. The reason I believe inciting violence, riots, or bullying should be illegal is because they go against one of the laws of Libertarianism. In a libertarian society, there are laws against violence, so if something violates a Libertarian law, then it shouldn't be legal. 'Another problem in my opponent's argument is that he's now trying to twist the resolution to fit his arguments; he is affirming the resolution as-is, that's the burden of the person presenting the claim; the resolution does not say "Most censorship should be abolished", merely that "Censorship should be abolished"; my opponent is, at this point, only affirming the resolution conditionally, if at all; he's trying to defend some sorts of censorship while condemning others' I never twisted my argument, it seems like to only thing you're basing your arguments on is four words, 'Censorship Should be Abolished' instead of focusing on my actual arguments. It is true that I defend some censorship but condemn most, I think speech that violates laws should be censored, while speech that doesn't shouldn't be censored. I'm sorry that I have to use censorship in this quote, but if I don't then I could be kicked out of debate. org: "I'm tired of hearing about bad words and bad language. Bullshi*t. Words are completely neutral. It's the context that counts, it's the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. " - George Carlin. That quote explains it, saying 'That was f*ckin' awesome' shouldn't be censored as it doesn't hurt anyone, but saying 'F*ck this town, let's start a riot and kill everyone,' should be censored as it incites a riot and violence. My opponent claims that an amendment can be changed. Amendments to the Constitution can not be changed, only added or cancelled, such as the 18th amendment being cancelled after prohibition. The first amendment covers every type of speech except speech that violates laws such as inciting violence. 'My opponent is missing the problem with his argument; he's admitting that we would essentially have to censor censorship in order to eliminate it; whether he agrees with it or not, this admission further fortifies that he has unintentionally given the round to Con. ' Again, my opponent tries to use the argument of censoring censorship. Sometimes you can fight fire with fire. 'My opponent is operating under a mindset similar to "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"; he's claiming that, because teenagers and children will be exposed to that material anyway, it ought to be made legal. The problem is, that legalizing these kinds of things sends the message that exposing young children and teenagers to this kind of material is acceptable, whereas I have shown that it is not; this is why we have 18, the age of majority, and 21, the drinking age; obviously, children don't share the same rights as legal adults, and this includes pornography, tobacco, etc. ' I never made the argument "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," I just pointed out that prohibition doesn't work and there is no reason to make age limits legal. Why isn't is acceptable? I see nothing wrong with not sheltering your children from reality. Just because children can't drink, smoke, or watch pornography does not mean they don't. Making something illegal does not get rid of it, and sometimes even encourages people to try it, 'the forbidden fruit effect,' which you completely ignored. 'My opponent has ignored one of the key arguments I made last round, and has made a bit of a blunder; he claims that parents ought to watch the content being accessed by their children, but I stated last round that parental censorship is STILL censorship; my opponent is under the idea that the government is the only agent of censorship, but this is also done by parents, and even private organizations like the MPAA and ESRB (which have rights to censor material that they find to be harmful or inappropriate to minors, like Grand Theft Auto, for example);' I never ignored that argument, I clearly said that parental censorship wouldn't be possible to monitor by the government. But organizations such as ESRB are possible to monitor, so censorship should be abolished from products those companies make. 'As far as making money off of these things is concerned, I still don't think that we ought to be allowing the exposure of children and adolescents to excessively violent, sexually explicit material for the sake of profit; maybe I'm crazy for wanting to protect our youth from these kinds of things, but perhaps that's just me. ' You keep saying 'protect' our children like it's something out to get them and warp their little minds. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how keeping children in a bubble sheltered from the real world does any good. '"I don't advocated making public urination legal. .. " <--- Yes he does. ' No I don't if something violates a law (vandalizing property) then it should be illegal. I was referring to indecency laws that don't violate Libertarian laws. 'While making something legal doesn't force people to do something, it's the fact that society is declaring this behavior to be acceptable' Making something legal in a Libertarian society means that it doesn't hurt anyone, it doesn't mean it's encouraged. And people have different opinions on what's acceptable, making things illegal just because some people find them distasteful might as well be fascism. 'It might not harm children physically (except for maybe accidents occurring with that whole public urination bit), but I'm referring more to the psychological harm; in the same way that a child is going to be upset if he/she walks in on the parents, seeing this behavior multiplied in public is only going to cause more psychological distress for a child; and, honestly, no one in society is going to want to see this take place' Part of why someone might get upset when walking in on their parents is because of all the demonizing society and religion has done to normal things like sex. If no one wanted to see that behavior, then no one would watch pornography, and no one would listen to explicit music. If you don't want to see something in public, look away. If you don't want to see something on TV, change the channel. 'just because something is natural does not make it right or good, nor does it make it something that we ought to force society to accept ' Just because something is legal doesn't mean everyone is forced to accept it. Many people don't accept abortion to be acceptable, many people don't accept war to be acceptable, among many other things. Cody_Franklin, thank you for this debate, and voters, if you believe in freedom, vote