You bring up an interesting point. It seems to reinforce the idea that decisions on what to consume are best kept personal, because the more impersonal (i.e., broader) the constraints, the more reprehensible censoring sounds.

One who "self-censors," that is, decides for himself what he will read and not read, is natural and uncontroversial enough that it doesn't even feel like censorship, but this is the extreme. One level up, parents deciding what their kids will and will not read, is also, I think, a naturally correct decision -- but this time not quite one certain strange activists don't sometimes attempt to take issue with.

Taking a book out of a school library seems to be, by most if not all of the people contributing to this thread, a bad thing, but not as bad as taking that book out of a public library, which in turn is not as reprehensible as a nationwide banning. These increasing levels of adamant opposition we feel as the net is spread wider seem to serve to reinforce what seems to be the conclusion of this thread -- that the more personal the decision, the better.

Issachar, Dave, and I, and most if not all the other participants in this thread agree on this ultimate point, which is why I'm confused about why this thread is progressing as a debate at all. The various points of disagreement there are here seem to be all things like personal religious views that we expect to be diverse and to co-exist happily amongst, while the issues that *should* raise our concern if not outright evangelical involvement are ones we seem to agree on.

Issachar, I do have to say I'm grateful to your very precisely stated arguments in the last several posts. Hot button issues today are unfortunately viewed as simply two-sided: for or against. You're for censorship or you're against it. By suggesting total non-censorship is not inherently a perfect system, it's too easy to label you pro-censorship, which you've made plain is not the case, and so I have to say I commend your courage in even attempting to question the existence of a problem. Although I personally did not take you for having an outright pro-censorship stance with your first post, I admit I was too quick to pigeon-hole you nonetheless and allow a rather creepy knotty feeling to stir an emotional reaction before I had completely digested the fullness of your stated position. Your various replies to this thread have greatly aided in that clarification, by the way. (You threw me for a loop when you conceded all the points in my rebuttal and yet still had something to say.) The bottom line is, you've been able to set me thinking about issues of censorship in a deeper and more meaningful way than I had before. I haven't changed my views, but I think now I understand them more fully. Which is, I realize now, all you wanted to try to get people to do.

And it's an important thing to do, I think. By recognizing that non-censorship is by far a better state to be in than one of censorship, it is perhaps important to realize that a censorship-free environment might have its own secondary but significant problems (that some erroneously try to solve *with* censorship). By recognizing those problems AND the importance of NOT using censorship to solve them (as that would make the cure less manageable than the disease, so to speak), we become then able to start thinking about ways we *could* solve such a problem.

I don't know that many people have this level of understanding about these issues -- I certainly haven't ever heard of attempts to resolve such things, and it was only your last several posts in this thread that made me conscious of it. It's not hard to reason why. Merely stating the problem, even in very precise terms, pushes a lot of wrong buttons with people, as we have seen. That's why I have to thank you for having the courage to bring it up. If nothing else, I'm thinking about such matters more thoughtfully now.

Now this post is drifting, so I'll end it.