CENSORSHIP, REGARDLESS OF ITS PURPOSE, IS STILL REPRESSION

This morning at the Huffington Post, there is an article about the cause of death of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative "firebrand" (okay, he was more like a d****ebag) who dropped dead in his driveway at the age of 43 a few weeks back.  Just heart failure, small amount of alcohol, no drugs.  Like soooo many articles on HP, however, this one is being monitored heavily for post article comments.  Come to expect that on anything pertaining to Bachmann and Palin - perhaps there are too many among the "progressive" readers of HP emboldened by the anonymity and enthralled by their own immature cleverness to make scatalogical comments about either - why bother when their twisted views and public personae compared with their personal (lack of) accomplishments offer up so much material for commentary?  LOST Digresses.  Earlier this morning, LOST attempted to join the posters under the Breitbart article, by offering up the following:


"Presently, there are 380 comments, and 214 "pending." Sure, there are likely some people submitting posts who are probably going over the line on a deceased person, with whom they had very strong disagreements in life. Yet, the type of scrutiny used on the comments yields as an end result a list of comments that makes it appear as though the HP reading community liked and respected this man's work, when clearly that is not the case. His behavior, particularly the last 10 years, added to the partisan polarization in this country, often with great exaggeration and vitriol. It is sad that he died so young and left a young family, which hopefully was or will be well provided for in his absence. Yet Breitbart "need not be idealized, nor enlarged in death beyond what he was in life . . ." he was a partisan activist, who held views which most of the HP readership disagreed with strongly."

Aside from the nausea inspiring use of a beautiful line from Ted Kennedy's eulogy for his brother Robert, there is and was nothing cruel, mean-spirited, vitriolic, and certainly nothing untrue or inaccurate about the above-noted post.  Yet it still met the HP filter, and presumably the threshing blades of its verbiage disposer at the other end.  Why?  What purpose does that serve?  What good is done by managing comments to make someone so polarizing in life - by his own choice - look as though he was universally revered and respected?   Pure silliness.  Breitbart was a polarizing figure, as he chose to be.  In his inner circle, there may have been people who didn't share his views but nonetheless liked him and it was mutual - all of us have righty friends that sometimes "share" stuff that makes our brain hemispheres want to spin and retch; but why do the vitriolic in public and by choice get a pass on the slab?  What sort of fawning tributes await for Limbaugh when he finally eats his last bacon-wrapped filet?  Shall we shed tears for Cheney when he goes, or can we point to his record of possibly-intentional inaccuracy about Iraq and its WMD programs in 2002-2003?  Fair questions, all geared toward why some have the compelling need to suspend the freedom of speech in the presence of death - particularly for those who embraced, created and seemingly enjoyed the path of controversy and confrontation in life.