It seems a bit sad when other countries look to ours as a model of freedom. The American way seems to be headed more and more towards censorship and restrictions on speech. America needs a new way.

Right now, the talk about censorship is not as heated as it has been recently, but it is still there. It lurks around the music industry most often, and from there it filters into the school classrooms.

Music and literature are not the enemy. Words are not our enemy, nor are pictures. Words have as much power as a person gives them. Censorship and its proponents are the enemy.

It is sad when people want to take away someone’s personal expression. In a world becoming more technological each day, we should all relish when a fellow human being states a belief, offers an interpretation of an event or—more simply put—COMMUNICATES to whoever happens to be listening.

Those who are fearful of music or pictures on magazines or supernatural tales must be afraid of themselves. All forms of art and expression describe human existence—they are a part of every person who has trod on this planet.

Some of the best literature speaks directly to people, confronting fears common to all. One such victim is “The Catcher in the Rye.” How can someone be offended by a story about a teenager going through life trying to find out who he is, maturing in the meantime. But such literature is removed from some school systems.

It seems anyone wishing to ban such a piece must not be willing to realize their own insecurities. Perhaps those people are still trying to find themselves, and unable to deal with their own reality, need to search and destroy someone else’s.

Or what about those people offended by a photo layout of a pregnant woman. If an act of love and the birth of a human is so embarrassing, then it is hard to understand why the population keeps growing.

People seemed to be more incensed about a naked pregnant woman than a large group of women parading on a stage to be judged by their appearance. It is so hard to find any sense in this.

Perhaps those do-gooders out to rid the world of smut need to concentrate more on changing problems which exist in life. Violence does not exist because of books or music. People often seem to imply a relationship of cause and effect where one has never—and will never—exist.

It is very difficult to draw a line between what is suitable for a reader or viewer and what is not. And if it was possible, what sort of judge would the job require?

Communication is the only way we can understand each other. If we are such a “superior” species, why are some of our members trying to suppress that which makes us superior?

The thing most remarkable about human existence is the ability to communicate (there’s that almost foreign word again). And what is remarkable about communication is the idea of shared meanings. We’re all a part of this existence.

It will be a bleak world when people are no longer able to freely express themselves, in any manner they might choose. We would become a society written about by such authors as Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood or George Orwell. Of course, no one would realize the true meaning of this because the books wouldn’t be around.