How Self-Defeating State Censorship Lights, Fans Extremist Fires

Millennials and pre-millennials who were blessed to grow up in an era before some Social Justice™ twat was inexplicably given the keys to the franchise and used her power to turn Princess Leia into a bitter divorcee flying lesbian in a galactic gender-queer circus — when all we had were the three blessed original movies, which I watched daily at the age of five with rapt attention — might recall this scene aboard the Death Star, in which Leia explains the political reality to Grand Moff Tarkin:

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

The censors, aside from being moral abominations, will never prevail as victors in their war on “misinformation” until, conceivably, their grip on the dissemination of information is completed with the assistance of technology.

Via The Guardian, 2015, authored by heroine Naomi Wolf (emphasis added):

“After the Charlie Hebdo shootings, heads of state marched abreast in Paris in symbolic defence of France’s long tradition of freedom of speech. This seemed reassuring. But that image was what political consultants call optics – for democracies around the world have recently seen a striking wave of anti-speech legislation…

Surely, after one terrorist atrocity after another, stamping out the freedom to express “extremist” ideas on college campuses and online is a small price to pay for safety?

But the core assumption on which these politicians, including Cameron, are selling these laws to the public, is simply wrong. The concept underlying such bills is that dangerous ideas are like a virus. You can quarantine them or kill them, like germs. But ideas are like a vast, rushing body of water that will uproot checkpoints and reconfigure a landscape – if barriers are placed in its way. In fact, the history of censorship shows that it is completely useless in stamping out ideas: the fastest way to spread an idea is to censor it.”

Related: Hillary Clinton Demands ‘Criminal Penalties’ for Americans to Deter ‘Misinformation’

Among the many reasons that, as Wolf correctly notes, “the fastest way to spread an idea is to censor it” is that people love looking at what they are told they are supposed to divert their attention from — “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” being the final command of the despot before the curtain is lifted.

Via Britannica (emphasis added):

“Streisand effect, phenomenon in which an attempt to censor, hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only serves to attract more attention to it. The name derives from American singer and actress Barbra Streisand’s lawsuit against a photographer in 2003, which drew attention to the photo she was suing to have taken off the Internet…

Scholars have noted that censorship often backfires when the public perceives an attempt by a powerful person or organization to repress free speech. It can incite public outrage, especially if the story involves an underdog. Moreover, attempted censorship can spur curiosity. The banning of books and websites, for instance, often drives further interest in them. People tend to want to judge for themselves what is objectionable about something that has been singled out for suppression.”

Related: German Minister Announces Pre-Crime Surveillance, Prosecution of ‘Far-Right Extremists’

So, eat your heart out censors — for now, your efforts to control the free flow of information that is the Western birthright is worse than ineffective; it’s counterproductive.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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