Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

As long as I can remember, I have opposed censorship in all forms. I would always roll my eyes at the parents that would complain about the government not doing enough to keep their kids from viewing sex and violence on all mediums. I remember when I took a sociology class in college, one of my classmates who was a middle-aged woman said that it wasn’t enough that we have computer programs that parents can use to block websites that they would deem inappropriate for their children. She said that she was worried about her son staying at the house of a friend who didn’t have the same controls on his computer. She also mentioned the possibility of kids developing hacking skills to get around the controls. I wanted to tell her that it’s not the responsibility of the government to shield her kids from the obscene and as incompetent as the government was at everything else, it was unlikely that they would be able to prevent children getting around whatever controls they would impose on internet users. Instead I bit my tongue because I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. What I should have said was, “Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.” It’s an old cliché, but it’s one that always rings true.

I think one of the reasons why I don’t share the same stance on censorship as many concerned parents do is because I was raised in a household that had very few restrictions on what I could watch, listen to or read. As long as the content wasn’t pornographic or had any negative effects on me, I was allowed to view it to my heart’s content. Some of my childhood heroes aside from those from the DC and Marvel universes, were high octane action heroes such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. I think the very fact that I have such diverse tastes in books, music and movies is a testament to the lack of restrictions that I had when I was a kid. It is also one of the reasons why I find the whole notion of censorship abhorrent.

Years ago, it used to be religious conservatives who were trying to rally misguided parents into supporting censorship on everything from hard rock to violent movies to violent video games. I remember back in the early 2000’s when conservatives threw conniption fits when Janet Jackson showed a partially covered breast for a micro second on live TV. They called for the FCC to place stricter fines on people who violated their sacred norms. This led to the FCC chasing Howard Stern and various shock jocks off the airwaves. I would later find it ironic when conservatives feared the revival of the Fairness Doctrine back in 2008.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Fairness Doctrine, it was a regulation imposed by the FCC to ensure equal time to all points of view. It sounds good in theory, but it’s not really profitable for radio stations to give time to the points of view that aren’t going to attract listeners, which is what kept talk radio from prospering until the Fairness Doctrine was finally repealed during the Reagan administration. The Democrats being upset about their own failed venture into the talk radio market, attempted to resurrect the doctrine to impose a regulatory burden on conservative talk radio to make the format unprofitable for radio stations. So, conservatives did have a legitimate reason for fearing the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, however very few of them considered abolishing the FCC, which would actually make it difficult, if not impossible for the left to ever reintroduce such an oppressive doctrine.

What is telling about the left’s attempt at trying to silence conservative talk radio hosts is that it gave us our first clue that the left believes in censorship just as much, if not more than the right. I suppose it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise since centralist Democrats, such as Tipper Gore rallied alongside religious fanatics to censor hard rock albums during the Satanic Panic era of the 1980’s. Then there was Bill Clinton who used violent video games and the entertainment industry as his two favorite scapegoats after the NRA, for the Columbine shootings. Though in recent years the left has turned its attention from censoring video games and R-rated movies, to censoring their longtime nemeses on the right.

The one thing that I can say about conservatives, while there are social conservatives that do have a misguided view on censoring content that they find not to be “Family Friendly”, there are few conservatives who would ever advocate suppressing a point of view that doesn’t match their own. Afterall, it’s not the conservatives showing up to left-wing speaking events and shouting the speakers down. Also, right-wingers aren’t the ones demanding Trigger Warnings or Safe Spaces to protect their fragile little minds from opposing viewpoints. You also don’t see conservatives going to Antifa rallies and swinging bike locks at their opponents. It’s not conservatives who control social media pages, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, who routinely silence opposing viewpoints.

Now that we have identified the problem, it’s time to discuss the solution. The solution is pretty basic, which is to reject all forms of censorship. Yes, social conservatives that means that you would have to stop begging the government to censor content on the airwaves that you may deem to be too naughty for your children’s eyes or ears. Aside from the fact that there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the government censorship powers of any kind, as long as you allow an agency, such as the FCC to exist, the door will always be left wide open for invasive regulations like the Fairness Doctrine. As for the social media platforms, there are two lines of thoughts on that subject. You have libertarians who say that they are run by privately own companies, so they have no obligation to offer anyone a platform. Then you have the Tucker Carlsons of the world who would tell you that these platforms are given certain privileges as a public forum that most companies don’t have, so they need more government regulation. Both sides are right and wrong. It’s true that the government has no right to dictate who can or can’t be granted platforms by private companies. However, Tucker is right about these companies being given privileges under the guise of being public forums, which prevents them from sued or held accountable for their discriminatory practices. Where I disagree with Tucker is on whether the solution requires government interference. By begging the government to come in and make it all fair, you are just going to invite even more censorship. The solution would be to give these tech companies an ultimatum that would require one of two options. One of them would allow them to keep their status as a public forum, but they would have to comply with those pesky bylines that we call the Constitution, like we would expect from all other public institutions. Otherwise they can give up their status as a public forum and lose all the privileges that come with it. I can see where Tucker Carlson is coming from, but whenever he calls for government intervention on social media, he should be given the same advice that I wanted to give to my misguided classmate. Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.