the merits and demerits of censorship and if it is neccessary

In my opinon, censorship should be used and is neccessary as it has many positive points.

One reason why censorship is neccessary as it protects our youth against negative social habits such as drinking, a pormiscuous sexual lifestyle, smoking, drugs and gangsterism, among other undesireable values. Censorship is vital in protecting our youth who are still not mature enough to watch these without becoming negatively influenced and learning the wrong social values.

Censorship of advertisements can also help steer the economy from luxery goods to capital goods and thus make it more productive, especially to a young one. For example, by censoring beauty advertisements and promoting other ones such as for homes, people will be encouraged to own homes instead of going for plastic sugery. This home they have allows them to have capital that for example can be used to get loans from banks. Censoring advertisements in the medical and law field also ensures that costs are kept down so that consumers are paying not for the image put on television but rather for the service instead.

However, there are exceptions to this. Censorship should never be used for political control or propoganda. One example would be in N. Korea now, the only dictatorship left in the world, where people are not allowed to get any news of the outside world. Other examples would be Germany or China in the past during the time of Hitler and Mao Zedong respectively.

Thus, censorship is neccessary except only in certain exceptions, mainly to protect our youth and to steer the economy.

Response to "spilling blood with oil in Iraq"

I learnt that what the media reports may not be true as they can be manipulated into presenting wrong information for the political purposes. The article is a good example of this.

The article, "Spilling Blood with Oil in Iraq", shows one example of this manipulation as it clearly aims to dissuade the reader from supporting the war on iraq. Examples of this would be "After just 18 days, the US invasion destroyed more of the country that Saddam Hussien ever did in more than 20 years." This sentence alone shows that the author is strongly against the war, as he immediately disclaims one of the main justification of the war on iraq: to liberate the people from Saddam.

However, the article, although one-sided, has its positive points as well. It shows us how the media was used in a political battle to gather support for the Iraq war, such as how "Colin Powell (secretary of state) accused Iraq of planning to use chemical weapons" and that US officials claimed that some US PoWs were executed when no such thing seemed to had happened.

In conclusion, one should keep an open mind and not be too easily influenced by what he reads or sees on television. Having access to many different forms and sources of media allows one to maintain a better understanding of the situations as well.