RE: Censorship-Pros, Cons and Opinions
While I don't agree with censorship, I must say that If I was some dictator or even just an elected prime-minister or president (depending the political system) I would use it in the first case and be tempted to in the second!
That said, as a member of the people and a lover of history, I strongly hate and disapprove censorship, since we're not seeing, reading or hearing the truth but perhaps parts of it, a distortion or a total constructed lie.
All forms of censorship are wrong, I cannot come with an example were censorship can contribute to the greater good, unless this "greater good" is something very particular to a person or group that thinks that censorship is actually good according to them.
Europe had a great deal of censorship with the Inquisition, and having museums in the 20th century that don't (or didn't) show some of it's pieces just because it's erotic it's just unbelievable since it'll lead to stupidity with people not calling the things by their names, not knowing how things are and/or were, remain blissfully ignorant and, when talking about creating something, it'll cause a limit on imagination and we'll have very little variety of themes.
Portugal has a national holiday in the same day that marked the end of a dictatorship - April, 25th (of 1974), so the theme of censorship is still quite fresh here (someone said that the time needed to recover from a dictatorship is the same amount of time that it lasted) but I don't quite feel it, at least not pertaining that time. The Portuguese are supposed to be grateful to those that made the coup d'etat because it ended censorship and it brought freedom but I rather see the democracy in my country as an illusion, not as strong as in other regions/countries since we have an opposition and democrative system but when we see the same group of people (from one of the two major parties that shift in governance) always in power and having bussinesses important to the country but instead filling their pockets, ruining those same contracts in favor of the companies (with some of them having participated in them or going there after leaving the government) while keeping the people in darkness due to lack of transparecy is just putting a blindfold with our consent. Nowadays, the Roman goddess of Justice, Iustitia (a.k.a. Lady Justice), has a blindfold so it can be impartial but If she's alive then she's blindfolded because she's getting f****d by corrupt people in some major g*ngb*ng, because here the justice taxes got higher and so while it prevents stupid things getting to court, it also limits the rightful access to justice. Worse yet, people don't notice it because they're misleaded by the media that tells them that white votes don't count and don't reflect anything, so it's better to actually vote on some party...Again, someone said that people have the government they deserve but this is like a circle. Back in the day, the writing censorship was applied by what was called the "blue pencil", used to line what was to be scraped from song letters, books and news. Today, the news media are still very focused on Portugal, disregarding the importance of european and international events and news and with dumb content that I think is due to censorship due to the lack of interest to educate and enlighten the people. Like I've said, with certain powerful people "hanging around" at the same time in politics, bussiness and news media, I certainly see some point for them in keeping people stupid and in the dark... Resources have always been at the core of kingdoms, empires and states but with the turn of the century, the importance of resources, economics and finacial matters have taken a clear step further with globalization so this is just a new field for censorship since now it's not only applied by states or religious institutions but also by private corporations with influence.
I leave here a suggestion: "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty". It's a game, its genre is tactical espionage action and this game is exactly about censorship and control of the masses. If you don't want to play it, just go watch the cutscenes on Youtube.
