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<title> For and Against Censorship </title>
There are many problems with censorship. One problem is to distinguish between different types of films. The violence in a documentary or in a film with historical background has a good purpose, but in an action movie the violence is often both exaggerated and unwarranted. The fact that children watch this type of films is another and increasing problem. If parents do not protect their children from watching violence on TV and video, censorship has to be increased and that can be dangerous for the democracy. In a democracy the freedom of speech is important, but at the same time we do not want extreme opinions, like racism to spread. There lies a danger in forbidding racists to express their ideas, and if we allow them to, it could help them to spread their ideas. 

Censoring violence is for the children's best, we do not want them watching movies that contain a lot of violence. On the other hand, we do not want our freedom limited by censorship either. Therefore we must choose, and choosing freedom always means that we have to take personal responsibility. It is the parent's responsibility what movies and TV programs their children watch. But today when there are a lot of channels it can be difficult. We might feel that it is too difficult, and want to share our responsibility with someone, the government, and that means censorship. But we do not want any censorship on violence that has a purpose, like in documentaries, news and films that have an historical background. Because there the violence is needed, since people believe in what they see.

If violence on the news is good because people believe in what they see, violence in action movies is bad for the same reason. When children often are exposed to violence they will get used to it, thus it will not make them react when they grow up and watch the news with a war going on. It is therefore important that our children are protected. But do we want censorship and the limits to our freedom that come with it, or can we ourselves make sure that our children do not watch violence? A lot of parents certainly do but there are parents who do not and their children need to be protected. They need censorship.

We do not want too much governmental censorship. Because we do not know how the censorship will develop and what will be censored upon in the future, for when the censorship grows, our own freedom becomes limited. But we do not want people with extreme opinions to express themselves, yet in a democracy it is hard to prohibit them from expressing their beliefs. That might not even be necessary. Perhaps it is better to argue their opinion to death, I mean if we let the racists speak in public we can prove them to be wrong with counter arguments. But if we make them illegal they will only hide and not cease to exist. On the other hand, by censoring certain opinions and pictures, we show that they are not accepted in society, and that is another way to make people change their minds.

The problems of censorship are difficult to solve, in this essay I have dealt with some of them. One problem is that in some kinds of programs violence has a purpose, documentaries and news for example, and there we do not want any censorship. A picture is very expressive, it is far more convincing to see pictures from a war on the news than only to hear about it. The news are more realistic to us when they are illustrated with pictures. The fact that pictures are expressive is not only a good thing, because some children watch movies that contain a lot of violence. These children will get used to violence, and when they grow up they will not react to the violence on the news. I also mentioned the democratic problem: how much censorship can a democracy take? It might not even be necessary to censor extreme ideologies like racism, to bring it out and argue against it could be more effective than making the racists hide because they are illegal. Still censorship is a way of showing what is accepted.
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