Student Paper Draws a Student Protest

[Adam White]

My point is, people just saying "I don't like you saying xxx" is not censorship under any definition. To a large extent it's just the result of every person getting their say. It sometimes means that very unpopular speech gets drowned out, but that's not censorship in any real sense.

But groups of people doing it are another thing - or more accurately, people trying to stop other people from saying or hearing/reading things is. And that was my point - both Sinead O'Connor and the Dixie Chicks were victims of right-wing PC censorship.

[Tacachale]

My point is, people just saying "I don't like you saying xxx" is not censorship under any definition. To a large extent it's just the result of every person getting their say. It sometimes means that very unpopular speech gets drowned out, but that's not censorship in any real sense.

But groups of people doing it are another thing - or more accurately, people trying to stop other people from saying or hearing/reading things is. And that was my point - both Sinead O'Connor and the Dixie Chicks were victims of right-wing PC censorship.

I agree with Stephen. O'Connor and the Dixie Chicks were at most "victims" of saying/doing things that weren't received very positively. No one, so far as I know, tried to stop them from expressing themselves, or preventing others from hearing and seeing it. The line is, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism.

I think you're trying to make a point that it's not only leftists who do this kind of thing. I'd agree with that. In some spheres, such as the comparatively liberal environment of college, leftists probably do it the most, but there are plenty of other areas where folks of other stripes are as bad or worse. Book banning moves, for example, seem to be mostly driven by conservative or relatively apolitical "think of the children" types. I don't think the liberal "PC" crowd was behind the bannings of, for example, "Harry Potter", "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian", or "And Tango Makes Three".

[Adam White]

I disagree, but it's not worth getting into a bun fight over. Needless to say, my recollection of what happened to both the Dixie Chicks and O'Connor is very different.