Moral Guardians/Quotes

"Now and then it seems that banning is all they can do. It's all they seem to want to do. That's the problem with a free nation: you can't make yourself significant by granting freedoms, so you spend your time looking for freedoms to restrict in the name of a greater good, and there's always a greater good. ..."

"As long as we're worried about sending messages: it sends an excellent message to let kids know that something that might encourage doubleplus Ungoodthink can be taken away by the state because you might draw the wrong conclusions."

- James Lileks, The Bleat, "Thursday, March 05"

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

- C.S. Lewis

"Mary Whitehouse has taken Umbrage, no surprise there."

"Marge: A new violent video game has hit the streets! And we need to get rid of it, before it warps any children with its bloops and bleeps! Homer: But that game sounds awesome! Marge: And therefore should be destroyed!"

- The Simpsons Hit and Run

"Rod Flanders: Daddy, what are you doing? Ned Flanders: Imploring people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for something nobody even saw. That's what I'm doing! Rod Flanders: (pause) Daddy, we think you need a new mommy."

- "You Kent Always Say What You Want", The Simpsons

"Marge: Call me a killjoy, but I think that because this is not to my taste, no one else should be able to enjoy it."

- The Simpsons, "The Great Wife Hope"

"Helen Lovejoy: Won't somebody please think of the children?"

- The Simpsons, multiple episodes

"Most American parents are fools that don't watch their foolish children close enough so they give them foolishly a game like Pokemon and months later they foolishly realize that one foolish part of the game is not part of their foolish vision to their foolish child's foolish bright future. So they foolishly start foolish protest groups to foolishly annoy those who are foolishly older that foolishly enjoy the foolish censored foolish aspect of the game's foolishly protesters foolishly protest about."

- RatedRKO7

"There are those who so dislike the nude that they find something indecent in the naked truth."

- Francis Herbert Bradley

"I am none other than Mr. Kehoe Pinney, President of the Campaign Against Filth and Blasphemy. And we’re going to ban this memory training system of yours in Swansea, Harrogate, East Devon, Preston, Glasgow, Staines, Yule, Gilford, Bournemouth, Watford, Yeovil, Dudley, Stourbridge, Quinton, Lutton, Weston-Super-Mare, Plymouth, Talke, Paignton, Sidmouth, Eastbourne, Bishop Auckland, Wigan, Jersey, Haverfordwest, the whole of Berkshire, the whole of Cornwall, and why are we banning it? Because we’re the ones who know what’s disgusting. We don’t have to see a pigsty to know it stinks ladies and gentlemen. It’s an insult to decent, right thinking people. Not that we’d ever have anything to do with it anyway. And even if we did, it wouldn’t harm us. Never! It would never harm us. Only other people, who aren’t as mentally stable and mature as we are. Thank! You!"

- Monty Python, "Monty Python's Hastily Cobbled Together For A Fast Buck Album" in a massive Take That to the uproar surrounding Monty Python's Life of Brian.

"If any form of pleasure is exhibited, Report to me and it shall be prohibited! I'll put my foot down; so shall it be! This is the land of the free!"

- Groucho Marx, Duck Soup

"We're the morality Squad Armed with the wrath of God! My name is Granbo And here's my holy hot-rod! Freedom for all the people Brave, true and strong Freedom for all the people Unless I think you're wrong!"

- GWAR, "The Morality Squad"

"Ask yourselves if this is the kind of book you would wish your wife or servants to read."

- From the court hearing against Lady Chatterley's Lover

"The insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect in horror. The bug cried to the three judges, — Now, by St. Anthony! this Jurgen must forthwith be relegated to limbo, for he is offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent.... — And how can that be?... says Jurgen. — You are offensive,... the bug replied, — because this page has a sword which I chose to say is not a sword.  You are lewd because that page has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance.  You are lascivious because yonder page has a staff which I elect to declare is not a staff.   And finally, you are indecent for reasons of which a description would be objectionable to me, and which therefore I must decline to reveal to anybody...."

- James Branch Cabell, "The Judging of Jurgen" (1920)