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Here is the problem with advocating censorship of "bad" ideas: If it is permissible make rules about what ideas can be expressed, then someone has to make those rules. And who will that be, people with power, or people without power. Obviously the former.
Btw, I am referring to censorship of ideas, not obscenity, not child porn, and not any of the 1000 other things that those who favor censoring ideas they don't like want to conflate therewith.
I disagree with this argument (and all similar "how would you like it if it were the right wing censoring left wing ideas?" ones)
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that (idea) censorship, as a technique, is inherently bad - even if its being done on behalf of your in-group in order to suppress the out-group.
There are techniques that I would consider inherently evil, even if done against people I disagree with (torture, vigilante violence, etc)
But as suppression techniques go, censorship is rather underrated:
Yes, the people in power want to stay in power, and everyone wants to impose what they believe to be moral on reality.
If you genuinely believe that all criticism of Jews is unfounded in reality and that allowing such ideas to exist in the mainstream could lead to a 21st century Holocaust, then why shouldn't you stop these anti-Semites from trying to prosecute such a wantonly cruel agenda?
Sure, it would be bad for your cause if the tables were turned, and it were the enemy in power, censoring all of your own propaganda. And censoring them now will have the second order effect of making it more likely they censor you later on. But that's outweighed by the first order effect of actually censoring them.
No, the idea behind it is usually good. It's that is always ends up getting abused...
Just look at history (looking at you blasphemy laws), the pattern is the same each time.
Now, I'm not saying that we can't have any regulations on speech (ie fire in a crowded theater that is not in danger) but any rules need to be transparent and very carefully constructed.
Censorship has been an obvious and pervasive aspect of American social technology since well before the founding, all the way back to the initial colonization. How did our long and rich history of censorship amount to abuse, and what were the concrete negative consequences of that abuse?
As a non-exhaustive list:
The Sedition Act was near-instantly turned into a political tool, including of jailing dissenters and political opponents, including with charges related to writings predating the Act's enactment. In addition to not doing much good about the whole War With Napoleon thing, the statute legitimized a lot of internal revolutionary speech and literal rebellions, and badly damaged interstate comity; while not the sole cause of current red-hot judiciary problems, it's very much the first bite at the fruit.
Comstock personally used the law to charge sufferagettes in response to publishing an alleged affair by one of Comstock's . Leaving aside the object-level debates for his censorship itself being bad, the expansive and often quixotic efforts undermined much of his more conventional anti-fraud and anti-spam efforts, was an absolute mess when it came to actual STDs, and often publicized and promoted the very works he was opposing. (Also, from a social perspective, he also inspired a certain J. Edgar Hoover.)
McCarthyism blurred the lines between communist party Russian stooge, 'mere' philosophical sympathizer, and People Who Annoyed McCarthy well before the Army inquiries. In doing so, he both destroyed future anti-Soviet-espionage efforts and provided cover for tankie academics for decades.
Of course, the more morbid question is when did it have a negative impact on the censors; telling people that they'll win but burn down society invites a lot of Joker cosplay. The Adams administration didn't win reelection, but that was probably off the table before the Adams administration first won the presidency; Adams himself nor the Sedition Act's authors were prosecuted. Comstock made his keep off of those he fined and punished. McCarthy died abandoned, so there's that one I guess?
This was an excellent post, and a perfect example of what I was looking for: strong historical cases of actual censorship.
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