A Turkish court has ordered the popular video sharing site YouTube blocked. A video on the site makes fun of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Censorship is always subjective. The Open Records Project argues that a society is made stronger by competing views no matter how noxious. For every Martin Luther King speech we must tolerate a David Duke missive. For every Rodney King video we must tolerate a Britney Spears exposure.
The underlying assumption of modern free society is that most adults have what used to be called “common sense.” Given competing views, most adults will make the “right” choice. Otherwise there must always be a paternalistic “super adult” to make the decisions. At the extreme, super adults run every aspect of a command and control society.
As Francis Fukuyama argued in “The End of History”, the war between liberal democracy and command and control authoritarianism is over. The Democrats won.
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