Let me see if I can follow your reasoning: Because Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, eventually rose to power, and imposed censorship, authorities should preemptively impose censorship to avoid another Hitler rising up and enacting totalitarian edicts like censorship? Huh?
Surely, you understand that censorship is one of the cardinal traits of every totalitarian regime in history. As Milton Mayer writes in They Thought They Were Free:
“Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.”
You appear to be advocating for adopting fascist tactics to … prevent the rise of another fascist regime? Do you not hear how illogical that sounds? And are you seriously saying it is more dangerous for an individual to have the right to free speech than it is for a government or other authority to suppress the freedom of its citizens?
I don’t have time to continue chasing this circular logic so will just leave you with this excerpt from the United States Holocaust Museum entry on Nazi Propaganda and Censorship (encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/artic…):
The Nazis wanted Germans to support the Nazi dictatorship and believe in Nazi ideas. To accomplish this goal, they tried to control forms of communication through censorship and propaganda. This included control of newspapers, magazines, books, art, theater, music, movies, and radio.
How did the Nazis use censorship?
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted.
Examples of censorship under the Nazis included:
Closing down or taking over anti-Nazi newspapers;
Controlling what news appeared in newspapers, on the radio, and in newsreels;
Banning and burning books that the Nazis categorized as un-German
