In 1644, two decades before his epic poem Paradise Lost was published, John Milton wrote a pamphlet, to be distributed to members of Parliament, against a recently-enacted licensing law. In defiance of the law, the pamphlet was published without license. Using Biblical references and pointing out that the Greek and Roman civilizations didn't license books, Milton argued, "As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable create [in] God's image," he told Parliament, "but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God ." He concluded his pamphlet with a plea:
<blockquote>" Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."<\blockquote>
A century later, Sir William Blackstone, one of England's foremost jurists and legal scholars, argued against prior restraint, the right of governments to block publication of any work they found offensive for any reason.The arguments of Milton and Blackstone became the basis of the foundation of a new country, to be known as the United States of America, and the establishment of the First Amendment.
Every year, at the end of September, the American Library Association sponsors Banned Book Week, and publishes a summary of book challenges. And every year, it is made more obvious that those who want to ban books, sometimes building bonfires and throwing books upon them as did Nazi Germany, fail to understand the principles of why this nation was created.
[Walter Brasch was a newspaper and magazine reporter and editor before becoming a professor of mass communications, with specialties in First Amendment and contemporary social issues. His current book is the mystery novel, Before the First Snow , a look at the 1960s, and how issues unresolved during those years are affecting today's society.]
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