Exposing ourselves to unsavory ideas will certainly not make us any smarter. However, all we have to do is cease watching whatever material a propagandist has set before us, and go about our business as usual. Children should be armed with the tools to decipher what is and what is not censorship while at school, but this does not always happen. It may not even happen most of the time for all we know. Simply assuming that propaganda is "obvious" enough to identify has proven to be an ineffective strategy for dealing with the harmful blowback of misinformation. Many people believe false claims, and it is not just people we consider unsavory or uneducated or "crazy". In my experiences with people, it becomes obvious rather quickly that many of them are open to new experiences. This is all a con artist or a propagandist needs of his target; the target must be actively seeking new information. This openness to new information becomes expanded during times of crisis, so much so that even things the target would consider laughable during times of stability or prosperity, can become rather appealing when the target is in despair. Even more disquieting, there is evidence that exposure to propaganda eventually alters political actions, but this exposure must be consistent over a long period of time. There are also some studies that suggest specifically targeting hate speech is, in fact, a successful form of censorship, meaning that discouraging things like racism or sexism in public does actually work. But this can prove to be quite difficult to solidify in the realm of political policies that will actually stand the test of time. We so many of these anti-hate speech laws being mangled and redefined today because the lingering effects of the Trump administration. Of course such attempts by the federal government to squash hate also immediately reflects where the government stands on domestic terrorism, and we have seen the consequences of being weak on domestic terrorism since the Trump administration as well. Indeed, as a political scientist, when I refer to censorship I am not really talking about your right to walk up to me and call me a racial slur. I do not want to encourage that type of behavior. So, you are walking a thing line when you argue, as so many people do, that people should be allowed to say whatever they want, whenever they want. That is going a bit too far for me. I am not comfortable with hellfire preachers disrupting students on their way to class, nor a I a big fan of Proud Boys starting fights in the name of their "first amendment rights". You have to have clear limits to free speech. Starting shit because you're having a bad day is not a "protected right", and, even if it was, you are strange for wanting to do that. At the same time, people will do silly things like with the power to limit speech. They will ban musical artists they dislike or put the squeeze on competing businesses that don't pony up a little extra money come rent time. This is a tricky subject. It's not as simple as just saying look at the first amendment because the meaning of constitutional amendments changes with every new Supreme Court Justice appointee. They essentially reinterpret the Constitution every time they hear a case. That is how our government is designed. But I do dislike the idea of some bully deciding who can and cannot say what. However, I also understand that private businesses and property owners can pretty much tell you to do whatever they want if you decide to drag your happy behind into their establishments. Tricky stuff here. It's not walk in the park. So, my arguments against censorship are not arguments for misinformation. Instead my arguments against censorship clearly demonstrate that censoring people over and over again actually contributes to negative and anti social behaviors, further radicalizing extreme ideas and putting them in the heads of people who otherwise may have never been exposed to them.