From: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO@44444444.COM   
      
   > According to the OED censorship means the official suppression of   
   published   
   > material on grounds of unsuitability or national security. Gibson's dog's   
   > name is censored from the film and your article states this clearly and   
   > your   
   > approval of it being censored;   
   >   
   > **You may believe that if you want to but you must know  perfectly well   
   > that you're misrepresenting my position. Quite clearly i don't wish to   
   have   
   > the knowledge of the dog having had that name suppressed.   
      
   ++ Clearly not, but I contend that bleeping the name in the film is   
   censorship of the past (swear words have always been swear words; Gibson's   
   dog's name has - whether we like it or not - not always been a swear word   
   but, repugnant as it may be, part of British cultural history) and sets a   
   precedent and adds to the gathering murk that is closing over the past. If   
   Gibson's character swore violently then I would say bleep it - before the   
   watershed.   
      
      
    The transmission   
   > of a word on live TV is quite different from its appearance in print, or   
   > even its use in quotation marks in a description or review.   
   >   
      
   ++ I don't agree and think you're being ingenuous (or disingenuous if it   
   comes to it) about that. Television *must* be considered a mass publication   
   since it reaches numbers that dwarf the book-reading public and the dying   
   circulation figures of newspapers. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if more   
   people watch a rerun of The Dambusters than have read your Abolition of   
   Britain book. Furthermore, you obviously realise the power of television as   
   a public medium by bewailing your lack of opportunity to get on it and   
   present your - usually quite sensible - views. It is a mass medium and if   
   showing material on it - such as The Dambusters - isn't publication (or, if   
   we're going to be pedantic, re-publication) then I don't know what is.   
   Therefore, when the dog's name is bleeped it *is* censorship (would you be   
   happier with 'bowdlerized'? It means censorship anyway) and in your column   
   you said you 'didn't blame TV executives for bleeping it out', therefore   
   giving your public approval to censorship not of a swear word, but a once   
   more widely-used word from the past; a past, as you have already gone to   
   great lengths to demonstrate, that is already under the airbrush of the Left   
   in too many ways to count. Furthermore, matters have been confused by 'rap'   
   and 'hip-hop' culture having taken to using the word with great extravagance   
   and thus importing back into youth culture; examples of this abound in mass   
   media - though no censorship seems to be required there....   
      
      
   >   and, given the way intellectual life in the   
   > West is going, the censoring of the dog's name in a TV screening of the   
   > Dambusters seems to me be just another increment on the royal road to   
   > censoring it as fact  and you are the first person to bewail the de facto   
   > censorship of aspects of British history in our schools.   
   >   
   > **I most certainly am. Which is why you should realise that my stance is   
   > not a surrender to political correctness. I could have made life much   
   > easier for myself if I had kept this private opinion to myself. I had a   
   > specific purpose in mind. It is this. PC's greatest strength in the eyes   
   of   
   > most people is that it has helped to end the stupid loutish abuse of   
   people   
   > on the grounds of their skin colour.  Unless those who oppose PC make it   
   > quite clear that they are not themselves racial bigots, and that their   
   > motive is not to protect such bigotry, they haven't a prayer of defeating   
   > PC.   
   >   
      
   ++I suspected as much when I read it but it seems a terrible shame that a   
   man like yourself who has gone to the length of writing a book defending the   
   principle of Innocent Until Proven Guilty should abase himself in this case   
   by acting Guilty Until Proven Innocent. I understand that we are now in a   
   situation where every other person you meet is their own self-righteous   
   little PC gauleiter, but surely noisily declaring one's own non-racist   
   outlook at regular intervals - and endorsing censorship of the cultural   
   history of one's own country in the process -is a bit of a defeat for free   
   thought and idependence of mind. It simply reinforces the sad truth that   
   debate has to be played the orthodox Left's way now or not at all.   
      
      
      
   >   
   >   
   > The fact that a few BNP morons take pleasure from hearing it and wearing   
   > insulting badges is neither here nor there: I am surprised to find a   
   > conservative like you legislating for a tiny group of fools.   
   >   
   > **Actually, it is here AND there. In almost any discussion of this film,   
   > this subject comes up. i receive many mails about it even if I don't write   
   > about it. there is a current here.   
      
   ++But there are many things broadcast on TV that make morons and perverts   
   extremely happy. Some can be easily dealt with in the name of common   
   decency; others less so and others still are more troubling in the context   
   of the times. I believe the transmission of this wretched film is one of   
   them.   
      
      
    And I am concerned that some of my   
   > readers may believe that I applaud this and endorse the view that the   
   > n-word should be transmitted on prime-time terrestrial TV.   
      
   ++But why would you think that?   
      
      
    I took the   
   > opportunity to put this right. And I am not legislating.   
      
   ++I think that newspaper columnists are, like other writers to a lesser or   
   greater degree, proposers, critics and antagonists of legislation.   
      
      
    I believe such   
   > matters should be dealt with by the institutions concerned.   
      
   ++Of course, but we all have an opinion on the behaviour of the institutions   
   concerned.   
      
      
   just as I   
   > believe they should not broadcast the f-word.   
      
      
   ++At any time?   
      
      
   >   
   >   Also, I don't   
   > think I can be blamed for the interpretation I put on your words when you   
   > said this: 'Who could possibly get any pleasure out of hearing it?' as if   
   > the sole purpose of the word being transmitted in the film was to give   
   > people pleasure.   
   >   
   > **Where does it say that? About the sole purpose, I mean? You have made up   
   > that interpretation out f whole cloth. It says and means exactly what it   
   > does say, no more, no less.   
      
   ++As your rhetorical question was the only rhetorical question offered in   
   defence of the transmission of the word, it seemed reasonable to assume that   
   you could see no other defence for it remaining uncensored other than it   
   giving people pleasure.   
      
      
   >   
   >   
   >  Of course, there are a great many people in England who have an antipathy   
   > towards ethnic minorities and I think a large factor in this is the   
   > dominant   
   > media telling them how wonderful a multicultural society is - and also how   
   > contemptible anyone who disagrees with this view is - when their own   
   > experience of it is often quite different. The censorship reinforces a   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)