Re: Labeling can *lead* to censorship!

[usenet%agate.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (USENET Administrator)]

Path: garnet.berkeley.edu!deadman
From: deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Subject: Re: Labeling can *lead* to censorship!
Date: 12 Nov 91 23:31:58 GMT
Organization: Stick Software
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <ki0p3eINN4af@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <m0kgXTf-00023uC@chinet.chi.il.us>
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

In article <m0kgXTf-00023uC@chinet.chi.il.us> katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Chris n Vickie) writes:
>Ms. Rosas writes:
>> But because Richard wrote something about voluntary
>> labeling not being so bad, the guy assumed that Richard is
>> like totally for censorship. 
>No one with half a brain is "for" censorship, but I think Larry was
>trying to point out that "voluntary" labeling can very easily lead
>to censorship. It is a fact that some stores and chains refuse to
>carry labeled records at all. That *is* censorship, and I believe 
>that's what the PMRC wants. Labeling in and of itself isn't as bad as 
>someone using those labels as an excuse to censor. The issue is much
>bigger, broader and far-reaching than just the labels themselves.

  No, I don't think so.  Is it "censorship" that many record stores
don't carry relatively unknown artists, or foreign "import" albums,
or such "low-demand" things?  Is it "censorship" that some stores
(gasp!) don't sell records *at* *all* (J.C. Penney's springs to mind)?
Obviously not, but the important question then becomes, what *is*
censorship?  I think you'll find the only definition is along the
lines of "censorship is the prevention of free speech by the use of
physical force".  A definition any more broad than this will give you
troubles.  So if the government passes a law that selling labelled
albums is illegal, that is censorship, because disobeying will get
you in jail (use of physical force).  But if a given store doesn't
want to sell labelled albums, for their own reasons (suffocating
morality, profit concerns, whatever) there is clearly no use of force.
Try to *make* those stores sell albums they don't want to sell, on
the other hand, *would* be a use of force.  And *that* would be
censorship, if you consider the albums a store chooses to sell to
be an "expression" protected by the first amendment (which doesn't
seem any more far-fetched than flag-burning or nude dancing being
"expression").  Even if it's not "expression", it's still better to
let stores choose to sell what they want to.
  If you don't want to shop at such stores, feel free.  I personally
disagree with such policies, and think people who do things like labelling
are assholes.  But please, reserve powerful words like "censorship",
"rape" and such for the real thing, otherwise they lose their meaning.
Using charged words just for the shock effect may someday have the effect
that, 10 years down the road when the governement passes a law outlawing
all obscenity in song lyrics, people will just say "oh, more censorship?
Well, we've had that for years now, that's no big deal."  Clarity of
thought is the only barrier between the world today and 1984.  Yow!
I'm getting excessively political / paranoid, perhaps.  Time to stop,
this isn't a politics group.  Thanks for your time, all.

-Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)
"Put a dime in my jukebox, you'll only hear this song
 And it won't be fun for long." - They Might Be Giants