Good question. I believe that it is worth spending a bit of my time to address this issue.

What is so particular about the State is first that its goal is to represent the interests of the population as a whole and not of certain individuals; incidentally it holds the power to legislate, and thus to punish “deviants”. In other words, choosing not to mention certain topics to promote ignorance is one thing (and is thoroughly done nowadays), punishing those that mention these topics is another.

Allow me to draw a parallel between this fundamental distinction and one’s own life. You choose what you wish to say and what you wish to “censor” from your own speech, regardless of the reasons. Denying this right would be tantamount to contradicting the very basis of free speech. That is also the case for organisations, which are but a group of individuals.

Censorship is not problematic on practical grounds as long as it doesn’t involve punishment, which only governments and public institutions are allowed to enact. Ethical issues do remain for purely prohibitive censorship, but again that is only the case for public institutions and governments. And that is not to mention that no matter what, any broadcasting institution, for example, will have to select some content while rejecting other.

What makes the State special as an agent of censorship?

If, for instance, all the editors of major news organizations agreed to hide or not publish anything pertaining to one topic, wouldn’t that effectively remove it from public view? Wouldn’t that leave most citizens equally ignorant of it, just as if the State had censored it? Perhaps that’s a silly example, but my point is: why does the means matter?

What quality is intrinsic to governmental action that makes its censorship bad, while other means of attaining the same results are not bad?

(quote) ~
“Goes to show to you that the best “defense” is a good “offense”. – You guys haven’t done shit to kick any sort ass, and now they’re taking advantage of it.”

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Its ~ VERY ~ easy to say, yea, get some weaponry, and fuck’em up, however, what will occur in using any type of offensive aggressive tactic, is exactly what these people want to be handed to them.

MORE REASON to say …

“See this is why we need to stop these deviant people, because they are out here to attack violently, and are spreading the cancer quickly, this is why we need to STOP THEM!! BECAUSE THEY ARE DANGEROUS!! Not ONLY to the general public to our children!!”

I have been saying this over and over (personally)…

This is not the way to do this, there are other methods in order to get our message across, which will appeal to everyone who is willing to join us in what we believe.

Yes, aggressive tactic(s) can be useful, but that is totally dependent on the situation, and this is not one of those situations.

We have been “hit” and by this “hit” ~ we now know that our message is beginning to filter out beyond our expectations, and is hitting home, and that – ‘they” – (whoever they may be) know that we are being serious to the cause in which we believe in.

We can only learn from this “hit” and continue to move further forwards, standing up for what we believe in.

Because hey, if lolicon art is porn, than so are those museum Renaissance paintings and sculptors of naked boy/girl angels. And if those people want to argue “those are angels, and natural (religiously)”, than we get a whole ton of free arguments. Most notably, that 99% of lolicon characters in anime have age well over an average adult (just not in appearance), or we could just go start our own religion and then separate it from the state entirely and not get involved in law.

It’s ridiculous how such logical arguments are so easily thrown out of court because of biased judges, the people saying it don’t have a law degree, or the chance to speak.