Responding to Author’s Defense of Censorship

Let me get this straight--a writer singing the praises of censorship?

As distasteful as an attitude such as his might be, I can at least understand it when it’s being stumped by pandering politicians or self-promoting district attorneys. But to what office does Steffens aspire? Poet laureate for a right-minded government? Moral Majority toady?

“Even if the (2 Live Crew) jurors were acting to protect the adults of their community,” he writes, “they were not out of line.” So the jury was not out of line, but the advocates of the First Amendment apparently are. He derisively calls First Amendment advocates “self-appointed protectors” who believe they are the only thing between us and the loss of our freedom. Come again?

If that’s the case, what does Steffens call people who tell you that you cannot hear or read something because they have decided it is bad for you? I used to call these people Mommy and Daddy, but then I grew up. Steffens calls them the government and would have us all do the same.

GREG JOYCE

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