My question to this reading is how does/did the government decide what was worthy of censorship and what was not? For example, on pages 39 and 40 it says, “The visual Arts Center in Anchorage, Alaska put together a show of sixty works, all of which had been censored somewhere in the United States in the last several decades. Not all of these censorial acts were First Amendment violation because not all of them involved governmental action. But in every instance, someone was attempting to prevent others from seeing an artwork.” This absolutely does not make sense because the reading goes on to say that the common reasons given for an image’s removal were either opposition to the ideas expressed or a desire to protect others, like children. The desire to protect children from obscene images makes sense in a way, but that is of the concern of their parents. It is especially ridiculous to me that it says removal was in opposition to the ideas expressed. This seems to violate the First Amendment, which guarantees all citizens a right to speech. By censoring these paintings, is the government saying that art is not a form of speech? If so, then what did the government consider art to be back then? I understand that some of the artwork was pretty revealing such as those conveying condoms, the Ku Klux Klan, body mutilation, etc. However, my opinion is that is people feel offended by such art, then don’t look at it because others may find it quite appealing.
On pages 40 and 41, the reading mentions the instance of “What is the proper way to display the flag?” and how it made a lot of people angry and even President Bush deemed it disgraceful. I actually agree with this because clearly putting the flag on the ground is not the greatest way to display the flag. It’s deemed disrespectful to the country, and since we all live in this country, I think it’s safe to say that most anyone would find that disgraceful to the place they live.
