<p>When, why, and how is censorship okay? Is it alright for parents to ban certain books from their children's shelves? Should schools block websites? Should anyone be able to see an R-rated movie? Are curse words really that bad, or okay sometimes?</p>
<p>Lets see how many different opinions we can come up with.</p>
<p>I'm not a big fan of censorship. I think its stupid and counterproductive. </p>
<p>I guess parents have a right to "ban" their children from having certain books, but they can't really stop the kids from reading them. </p>
<p>I personally think schools shouldn't be blocking websites, but for that I don't really care. It's not hard to get around those blocks anyway. Blocking access to the internet doesn't work that well, quite often legitimate sites get blocked in addition to "bad" ones. </p>
<p>The whole movie rating system is ridiculous in general. It's like nudity and sex are some big big evil that you can't see until you're 18, but its perfectly okay to see people being killed at 13?</p>
<p>And what's the point in bleeping out curse words when you know exactly what they are saying anyway. It serves no purpose.</p>
<p>let's resurrect</p>
<p>Actually, I'm quite amused that some libraries/schools banned (!!!) Mark Twain's books for using word "nigger" in them. Aww, common, it's like they would ban Bible because there's usage of word "ass."
And all that political correctness in US is extremely ridiculous and funny to watch.</p>
<p>Especially given Twain's stance on slavery.</p>
<p>You no I'm against it...............</p>
<p>Though some what for it......actually the more I think about it. </p>
<p>I'm for it. </p>
<p>Parents are guardians and whatever they feel to be inappropriate should be withdrawn from there child. </p>
<p>Even at school with teachers same thing. At that time teachers play the role of being guardians while parents are at work or where ever. </p>
<p>Cursing.......sometimes I think to myself why do I even bother to do it. True. They are words but I can find most curse words wrong in the way they are used. </p>
<p>Damn, ass, hell. I think are fine, but it depends on the usage. </p>
<p>Censorship might seem crappy.....but to me if you aren't 18 or older....shut up.</p>
<p>They havent completely banned Twain at my school yet. They just give the kids a second choice of what to read.</p>
<p>There are some parents here working on getting the Harry Potter books banned at the local middle school's library</p>
<p>Hmmm.....if thats the case maybe Harry Potter should be banned.</p>
<p>Parents can be ignorant alot! But they are watching us until we are 18.</p>
<p>Wouldn't expect this from a guy who calls the OP a dike........eh...thats not how I really am. seriously.</p>
<p>What's wrong with Harry Potter?</p>
<p>Do you live in an excessively conservative town?</p>
<p>(Me.duh I know you weren't talking to me but)</p>
<p>I don't think anything is wrong with Harry potter. </p>
<p>I'm just saying parents have that authority to over rule almost anything that they feel is not appropriate for there kid(s).</p>
<p>A few parents tried to get the books banned because they said it promotes witchcraft, but the school board didnt ban the books</p>
<p>Censorship is a breach of our civil rights.</p>
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A few parents tried to get the books banned because they said it promotes witchcraft, but the school board didnt ban the books
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ROFL. This reminds me of inquisition, I hope they wont try to burn people who read HP on a stake yet.</p>
<p>Censorship is the parents' job, not the government's.</p>
<p>I'm not for censorship but I think in certain cases it's kind of necessary unless we want our children exposed to things at an earlier age than is appropriate (imo). I think the age for R rated movies for example is too old (what is it like 17?) i think it should be 14 or 15. I wouldn't want my 11 yr old going to a movie with his/her friends and seeing excessively sexual images or really vulgar and profane language
Likewise, I think it's up to parents to decide what their kids are mature or old enough to read. My parents haven't banned books, movies, etc but I can understand why some parents might. The language and sexual material in some books is not what I would want my kids to emulate or think is okay. It's basically about the maturity level of the kids though, and parents should be able to evaluate that. If a kid can read a book and then put it down and know that behavior in the book is not acceptable for them to be doing, then there shouldn't be a problem.</p>
<p>As far as schools banning websites: sure. My school does, and some websites are banned unnecessarily but for the most part the right sites are banned like facebook, myspace, etc. Students shouldn't be on myspace or w/e during school hours so I don't see why they shouldn't be banned. Besides, if you don't ban any sites kids could be going on porn sites or what have you</p>
<p>My school overdoes the website censoring. </p>
<p>We are allowed to use the research sites that they give us like Gale, Galileo, and World Book, and even then, we have to have a note from a teacher</p>
<p>We arent allowed to go to any other site that isnt on the list, like google, unless we have a written explanation from a teacher of the assignment and what we're looking up</p>
<p>Our librarians are very strict and unnecessarily mean</p>
<p>mr. chipset- actually a lot of people where i live won't let their kids read anything that contains witchcraft for that reason. my friend couldn't even read witch of blackbird pond. but ya i live in a bible belt so.... that kinda explains it</p>
<p>i'm not into censorship. although i do understand it for really young kids who wouldn't understand what they are reading or watching anyways. i remember a few years ago my mom didn't want me to read this one book she had checked out for me. she read it first and realized it was on cults with some pretty bad stuff in it. she knew i wouldn't understand it. i could read it now if i wanted to though. our school puts up a display of banned books for a few weeks during the year.</p>
<p>Movie ratings mean nothing. They're only guidelines. If a 12 year old wants to go to an R rated movie, they will sell him a ticket.</p>
<p>
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mr. chipset- actually a lot of people where i live won't let their kids read anything that contains witchcraft for that reason. my friend couldn't even read witch of blackbird pond. but ya i live in a bible belt so.... that kinda explains it
[/quote]
How about Tolkien? </p>
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We are allowed to use the research sites that they give us like Gale, Galileo, and World Book, and even then, we have to have a note from a teacher
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We actually had Google Images banned from whole district because some elementary kid found something that wasn't quite by the policies :) Well, our Art class had found work-arounds and still accessed GoogleImages. In fact, our teacher was helping us in finding back-doors :)</p>
<p>nope i don't think that passes either if i remember right.</p>
<p>oo and our school bans sites like myspace etc. but we can use google. we aren't limited to the school search one which is nice because our school search thing is not that great.</p>