Censorship: The Beep from above.

Has censorship gone too far? I would give you my opinion but I’m afraid the “Beep” preceding my “yes” would be deafening. The fact of the matter is that censorship in today’s oversensitive society has become more common than seeing Bill Clinton at a frat party. The problem being that there is no need for all this gratuitous over-thought. Why do we find the need to examine every statement and dissect it until we find a problem? We need to look toward the good of what is said, not the bad.

            One of the major problems with censorship is the fact that most of the people who are for it are not even the people who are offended by what they are censoring. I think if we look close enough we will see that people lobbying for censorship are simply taking up other’s battles. This would be noble except for the fact that most of the people they are fighting for don’t care in the first place. These are the people who are afraid of other people getting their feelings hurt, when those people who they think would be hurt find it just as funny as the rest of us. The disabled, the minorities, the religions, these people have their own voices yet some people choose to neglect this. They choose rather to amplify the voices of those they seek to fight for with their own. But in this new amplification the original message is twisted and confused into a warped overly moral version of it’s original, sensibly stated splendor. You know the people I’m talking about the radical rights prudes who stand outside the theater for “Dogma” with protest signs claiming “If you see this movie you will go to hell.” I have news for you people: that would be God’s choice, so unless you can show me the memo with his signature on it, back off and let me go see my movie. These people make the pompous jag offs of the Victorian age seem like generation X. People assume that just because someone has drawn a particular lot in life they can’t handle being joked about. I grant it, some jokes can be damaging and help to raise sentiment that is of a bad nature. These are the jokes that should be kept away from the ears of the impressionable public. Racial jokes are the most glaring example. Racism has probably caused more death than the bubonic plague. But if told in good humor they mean only to entertain. When you get down to it, it is not what you say, but if your being an asshole when you say it.

            Laughter heals the spirit. So why is it that some people refuse to give their spirit a good pick-me-up and learn to laugh at themselves? If a joke is aimed at you or your particular group you need to ask one question, “Was that meant to be funny or hurtful?” Jokes are supposed to be all in good fun, but if they are being used to hurt then they become insults, and those are not so cool. If someone makes a joke aimed at you then there is only one thing you can do, laugh at it. If you don’t find it particularly amusing then just shrug your shoulders and move on. No sense in being a jerk at the expense of someone else’s fun. If it is an insult directed at you then by all means do as you will, as long as you keep a cool head. Remember, fun and humor are both abstracts, no two people have the same sense of humor. One man’s “Mars Attacks” is another mans “Mall rats.”

            So if you are the type who gets offended when someone makes a joke in good fun then what you need to do is take a deep breath, count to ten, and go fuck yourself. If I just offended you then just keep it in mind the next time your mouth gets ahead of you while your road raging at rush hour traffic. You feel offended? How do you think the poor guy in front of you feels when you call him a “donkey rimmer?” That is the difference between fun and an insult. Keep in mind that the only difference between serious and sarcastic is the way you say it. So forget your euphemisms, and remember, fun is fun, maybe not your particular type, but sometimes it won’t be. Think about it.