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<title> Censorship: America's Freedom of Expression and its drawbacks </title>
The United States' constitution clearly states that any citizen of the USA has a freedom to express him or herself. This freedom of expression creates an open forum, in which any opinion, no matter how vile or misguided, may be aired. This has its drawbacks, however. Being able to say just about anything, people tend to do just that. Racists and white supremacists print newsletters in which they express their hateful ideology. Opinions ungrounded in facts, but instead based on emotions or personal beliefs, are expressed. Faced with the printing and expressing of material which the majority find distasteful and wrong, one is tempted to resort to censorship. The question that then naturally arises are, what is to be censored and who decides. 

In Germany, where the swastika is an illegal symbol. Germany chose to censor the use of the swastika, thus curtailing its citizens' right to express themselves. In Sweden, neo-Nazis are hampered by a law forbidding agitation towards a people. In America freedom of expression allows one to say, print, or in any other form, express ones opinions. This means that a Nazi can cover his property with swastikas without breaking the law, as long as he owns the property he puts the symbol on, but one wonders how many Americans would vote for a measure similar to Germany's.

The censorship of Nazi symbols is a relatively easy issue within the realm of censorship, as Nazism is so morally condemned. But others are not quite so black and white. When considering what is to be censored, one must remember that right and wrong are a matter of personal opinion, and also a product of the times. What will be lost if the US allows censorship? What some view as right, others find morally damnable. A 1993 report by the United Nations pointed out that if the US were to be treated as three separate countries, then the black population would be 30 places below the white one, and the Hispanic population 35 places lower, making them poorer than Chile and Uruguay. If the US had practised censorship, would this document would have been black listed for the fracas it caused and its anti- American attitude. Pro lifers are advocating censorship of what they find wrong. Religious groups would also like to be heard if the US ever decided to have a censorship law.

The opposition to censorship is not only based on problems with what to censor. Others oppose it on principle, saying that it smacks of Orwell's Big Brother deciding what the masses are allowed to read, and thus to know. Though they may find the material which the government proposes to censor worthy of such a measure, they idea of censorship is so against all they believe that they oppose it anyway. As said above, ideas of right and wrong are mostly grounded on a personal belief system. No matter how righteous the cause, should we allow a few impressing their morals on the many? In my opinion, they would be wrong, but would I be allowed to say that? A few years back, a bill which would censor the material available on the Internet was proposed. Protesters urged homepage owners to change the color of their background to black in protest of the bill, with such astounding results that anyone who was unaware of the protest received quite a rude shock upon the sudden transformation of the appearance of the homepages.

Though I sometimes wish that bigots, racists and other fanatics could be deprived of their means of expressing their hateful ideology, just so that no one would have to put up with them, I realise that I am not wise enough to decide who may speak, and of what. Benjamin Franklin realized that one must relinquish some of ones safety in order to be free. Hence, with the right to express ones opinion freely, comes the responsibility of having to listen to those who's ideology is vastly different from ones own.
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