When I was a kid of around 11 - 12 years old, my friends at school used to chat about the naughty films they'd stayed-up late to watch the night before. If you were a boy growing up in the 80's, you'll remember the ones I mean: National Lampoon's European Vacation and Class Reunion spring to mind.

My mates used to spend all day raving about the topless girl scenes. I had nothing to say since my parents would insist on censoring films like these that they knew I wanted to watch, recording them (on VHS) and then editing out all the good bits.

This used to incense me at a time when I was just discovering females as sexual objects (not literally, of course) and my friends' regaling me with breakdowns of the bit where the hottie jumps into the pool topless, or where the nerd looks through the keyhole to see the high school princesses getting changed, and my frantically searching the tape looking for these bits, only to discover that it had been cut by my very own private censorship board left me empty and envious of my jammy friends.

Maybe this contributed to my fight against - amongst other things - censorship. If so, I guess it was a good thing! But in reality, censorship is a bad thing, since it involves a minority robbing the choice of the majority. Let me explain.

There are many forms of censorship: moral, political, religious, military, corporate. Right now, I'm going to talk about the actual philosophy of censorship, its implications, and reasons for its negative effect on society. For this purpose, I'll use the film classification example.

The main worry with the idea of freedom from film classification would probably be the effect of the prophesied explosion of films limitless in their violent and sexual content would have on society. To believe in the idea that the human race would spiral into rapid deterioration if censorship was lifted is to not understand humans at all.

Let's pretend, for example, that censorship of film was no more. And let's say a company wanted to make a film with extreme violence of the kind never before seen in a film. Incidentally, a film of this nature could only be made possible in today's human-depravity-addicted climate - as small a minority as it is - and only by someone actually despicable enough to actually want to make it.

I mean think about it, who in their right mind actually gets turned-on at the thought of humans ripping each other to pieces? The kind that want to make films like these, that's whom. In a truly rational, human society, there would really only be a tiny minority - if any - that would actually want to make this type of film. And there would be an equally tiny minority - if any - that would want to watch it.

Now imagine that your twelve-year-old kid wants to go and watch this film. A lack of film censorship has made its creation possible, right? But it's you that now has the choice of whether your child watches it or not - NOT a third party organisation.

So the choice now, is, do you let your child watch the film or not? If you have any standards of course, you wouldn't let your child watch it. And in an ideal world, NO parent would let their child watch the film. But what about the adults that want to watch it?

Assuming no children would be allowed by their parents to watch the film, it would therefore only be adults that would want to go and watch it. At this point, adult fans of these films would be the hungry market giving life to these films via ticket fees and video sales - the profits transformed into further, sicker films AND the existence of their fans acting as proof that there was indeed a market for the films.

So, in our example here, every party so far mentioned now has the power and freedom of choice (except the kids, whose parents forbade them going to see the film. This is part of the role of a good parent and contributes to the maturing of a good, rational adult. To let one's children's impressionable minds be exposed to films like these would result in offspring of weaker morals, since the concept of humans ripping each other to pieces as entertainment would be embedding itself into the child's philosophy.)

So with that said, with everybody in our example completely free - the filmmakers to release the film uncensored, the adult viewers to watch the film uncensored, and the parents to allow their kids to watch it or not - how does this all back-up my claim that censorship is bad?

Let's break it down. The filmmakers are free to create and release any film they please. And in this example, they've chosen to create a film of excessive violence. How is this a good thing? It's not. But it wouldn't be the freedom from censorship that would be to blame. Analyse why they made the film - it's because of the way they are as persons.

Why are they the way they are? Because of the choices they made. Why did they make the choices they made? Because of their philosophy. Who grew their philosophy? They did, based on what was fed to them as children, during the development of that philosophy. Who fed them as children? Those that reared them. Who reared them? Their parents, guardians, monkeys, criminals, etc.

So if their philosophy, obviously, has led them to create negative, depraved films, then surely those that reared them are ultimately to blame? Yes, mostly, but also are the 'morals' most prevalent in their society. What if society HAS had a big effect on their wanting to create these films? The genetic parents chose to have them, and in doing so, accepted FULL responsibility for what went into their minds in the child's formative years AND the admission that the society they chose to bring them up in had the potential to influence them in great ways, too.

What about the adult viewers? See the previous answers - but swap creating the film for watching it. What about the parents? If they didn't stop their kids from going to watch the film, why was that? See the previous answers - but swap creating the film for letting their child watch whatever they want. What if the kids somehow escape and watch the film anyway? See the previous answers - but swap creating the film for having and rearing kids that want to escape guardianship.

Moving on. Consider those that phone up, or write to a television company, complaining about the lack of quality television programs. Acknowledging the power of choice, what's the solution, here? Change the channel. What if you're not happy about paying for a television license where most of the stuff you're paying for is rubbish? Don't have a television license and get a new hobby. What if you demand high quality television programs, but there are none? Make your own television programs!

We're talking about the power of choice. Every time something is censored, the decision is being made for us by an organisation, the representatives of which we've likely never met before. We can conclude that the negation of choice and, with it, the implementation of controls, inhibit the growth of humans, caging a man, making him want to break free.

If we lived in a truly free society, and I mean FREE in every way, with objective laws existent only to protect this freedom of man, a police force to enforce it, and an armed force to protect the borders from foreign invaders, the world would be very different.

For a start, the savages would die out with effective policing and the protection of the civilised, therefore stifling the savages' barbaric ways.

The non-productive would be forced to produce as their line of welfare and support - their passive, automatic means of survival - would be cut.

The irrational would be forced to become rational, as they would no longer be protected by subjective laws, the validity of which dependent upon the arbitrary philosophy of random judges.

The mystics would be forced to finally realise that the beauty on this earth that wasn't here before they arrived, was actually created with their own hands, since any hypotheses suggesting otherwise would finally become transparent in light of the belated recognition of there being no proof of it.

The strong, creative, industrious and honest would thrive as they would finally be free to operate at a maximum human capacity, thus advancing the human race further. Any irrational minority would simply be impotent within such a system.

Therefore, there would be no need for censorship in a completely free society. There would be few - if any - making stuff that REALLY needed censoring, anyway, and there would few - if any - consuming it.

This is what we should be fighting for.

To freedom,

Scotty Stevens