WHAT IS (AND ISN’T) CENSORSHIP
WHAT IS (AND ISN’T) CENSORSHIP

Summary/Abstract: The function of private property rights is, among other things, to ration, in a reasonably just fashion, the allocation of space and time – since both space and time are determinate or finite, it is not even imaginable that there should be resources to satisfy all demands, wishes, desires. Private property is anathema to socialism. The institution of the right to private property is a concrete, practical implementation of individual rights. It makes the free exercise of religion, of freedom of speech and expression possible for individuals. Censorship cannot be identified with editorial or publishing judgment because censorship is what a government imposes, forcibly, at the point of a gun. Because the medium of broadcasting is federally owned, the private users of the medium are subject to censorship, not unlike the way restaurants that open to the public road have been held to be under the public authority and ordered to prohibit smoking or whatnot, on grounds that they are involved with the public interest.

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