Well hell! This has certainly turned into an interesting thread.
Some interesting points everybody, and thank you Wayfriend, for the final clarification (the one you accidentally adressed to me), which is, I think, a good example of you being "on form". (I pretty much disagree with you, but it was still a good post.
)
So much has been said! It's difficult to decide what to comment on. First though, I think I see your point about "turning away" not always being enough to prevent "harm", but I'm not sure that the examples you count are "censorship".
Censorship would mean that there would be no hardcore porn, that there would be no grusome images. As it is, it's not illegal to show somebody a picture of a hacked up corpse is it? Is it illegal for anti-abortion protesters to display images of aborted foetuses? Not as far as I know.
It's a fine bloody line. In the end, as Plissken says, there are a lot of things that offend me. Things that offend my sense of what is right. But to see and know those things is how I know what kind of a person I am. I'll give you an example or two:
I'm offended by the sight of people living at or below the poverty line crowding into casino's and plugging the little money that they have into slot machines, in the desperate hope that they'll win more than they had.
I'm offended by the fact that poverty-stricken people are taking out dubious cash loans to buy huge numbers of lottery tickets, in the desperate hope that they'll win the Jackpot and be able to pay back the loan.
Hell, there's a lot of stuff that offends me. I don't get hurt by it, I might be disturbed by it, it might make me a liitle more vehement, but hurt? It doesn't hurt me.
The thing is, that I don't think that it's a "threat". I don't walk around worried that I might see something that I don't like, or disapprove of, I just walk around. 99 times out of 100, I don't see anything that (threatens/offends/upsets) me.
The world is
not safe. I hope that one day it will be, but anybody who thinks that it is, is not paying much attention. The world is not safe, and maybe it's
good that it's not safe. What value a world that doesn't challenge us, threaten us, surprise and amaze us? To make the world "safe" will be to sanitise it, to sterilise it, to render it stagnant.
Get out there and
be offended,
be challenged, and use that experience to teach yourself something
about yourself.
Oconnelc -- leaving aside for the moment the value of the "natural" argument, (which perhaps is an insufficient one, although scarcely invalid), first, we're a multi-national community, so why limit it to the States? (Although obviously most people will apply the context of their own countries.
What I want to ask about your post though, is the point on abortion-- Women
don't have the right to have an abortion in the US? Really?
Second, don't you think the question of whether or not we
should be able to do something is far more important that
whether or not we are
allowed to? I certainly do. The law, for all its good points, was made up by a bunch of people to suit their own ideas, and often even to support their own particular "agenda's" It's practicality, applicability, and validity should always be questioned. We must never substitute simple obedience to the law for morality and justice.
Oh, I think that what Cail was saying was that if women had the right to go topless if they chose, then he doubted they would do so (excercise that right) other than in their back yards.
--Avatar
When I was a kid, my parents apparently REALLY needed a night out of the house. Either that, or they hadn't heard the first thing about the original Godfather before they took us to see it at the drive-in. I still remember clearly how horrified I was watching James Caan savagely beat his brother-in-law. Yet, at one point, my mother covered my eyes. I asked what was happening? She said, "There's a nude woman." 
Thank you good sir.