It used to be that you couldn't show a murder in a movie unless the murderer was apprehended and punished. That was a long, long time ago. Now our murderers are heroes and played by top notch stars.
CHICAGO—Violence over the weekend resulted in Chicago's 400th homicide this year -- that's up 25 percent from the same time last year.
On Sunday, Jose Escobar, 25, was shot and killed after a fight near a fast food stand at 35th and Morgan in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. His friend was left paralyzed. Escobar's family says he was a gang member, but was trying to change his life.
“In Chicago, the epidemic of violence is spreading all over the place,” said Ceasefire Illinois director, Tio Hardiman.
Censorship! Why that's blasphemy! How dare you suggest that the things we fill our heads with affect our behaviour.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, this is exactly how all those aggravating, expensive, oppressive, job-destroying regulations on business get started. Somebody with the best of intentions pushes for some regulation that he thinks is going to solve some actual problem. But then once it gets in place, the people who actually administer the regulations are free to use them to control, extort, or sometimes crush, entire industries.
ReplyDeleteAnd make no mistake. Censorship is regulation, and of a type that is particularly easy to abuse. You might start with "No glorifying extramarital sex, and no unpunished murders", but there are so many cases where this has slid into, say, "No criticism of the government".
Censorship is a crude and clumsy thing. Life is a crude and clumsy thing. Some regulations are good, some are bad, some are too little, some are too much and the fulcrum moves all the time and is dependent on circumstances and individuals.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I don't think I'd want to expose every dog at every animal shelter to lots and lots of aggressiveness training. The results would be violent, painful, crude and clumsy.