If you have paid attention to both domestic and international news, you will have probably noticed a global trend towards increased government power to control the flow of public information.
There are several rationalizations for this proto-Orwellian behavior that the world’s governments endorse. Among them are
A) Protect the Children. This excuse can be used in almost any situation in order to rationalize expanded police power. However, I am of the opinion that this is really only an attempt by governments to do parents’ job for them, caused by the mistaken belief that you can legislate away fundamental human social problems.
B) We cannot reason with our ideological enemies, so we have to kill them or be killed. This particular rationalization can’t even be considered a mistaken belief, because in 80% of cases where I’ve seen it used, it’s intentional manipulation. It’s a falsely dichotomous mentality left over from the Cold War era. Us or them, kill or be killed. But the problem is, it’s not true in a majority of cases. Most of the time, there’s a middle ground that negates the need for expanded government power.
C) God wants us to be strong, all the others are infidels. Self-explanatory. Common in modern extremist Islamic countries, particularly Iran, as a justification for expanding government power.
So. I guess the questions here are three, but all related. Would you rather be a good parent or have the government do it for you? Would you rather die for your freedom, or live perfectly safe but without liberty? Would you rather worship a God that demands that you kill or control all that oppose him, or a God that encourages diversity and toleration?
France, Australia, USA, Germany, and the UK have all implemented hefty information surveillance and control legislation. And just today, reports were posted that indicate Germany is taking even further steps to legislate new government powers. Read more about that here.
Humanizing the Mob 
Yeah, censorship is bad. We should ban it.
That’s kinda like being intolerant of intolerance, eh?
I wasn’t just talking about censorship, either. I’m talking about Net Neutrality, the “State Secrets” protection that the government uses to shield information from lawsuits, hiding electronic voting machine source code from the public eye, and the increasing abilities of the government to look first, issue a warrant later. Or not at all.
Scary. And there’s really no excuse for it, especially considering that we hold dear traditional American values such as responsible parenting and giving Liberty priority over personal Safety.