UPDATE: N&R responds to reader pressure, will post strips online.

Ribar on the absurdity of the N&R deciding its readers can't handle this week's Doonesbury strips while running all kinds of other adult content:

In addition to these, the paper is chock-a-block, as usual, with murder, violence and mayhem in Greensboro and elsewhere.

I actually remember reading the famous necrophilia letter to Ann Landers at the breakfast table in my innocent youth.

Comments

[Andrew Brod]

Interesting that this comes just as the paper hires a new editor and redoubles its efforts to remain relevant.

[Ed Cone]

1. Focus on defending a dwindling business rather than building for future growth.

2. Address readers as if this is the Mayberry paper.

3. Scrub paper of any material too controversial for a CBS crime drama.

4. How's that relevant thing going?

[justcorbly]

Had to pull my N&O out of the wastebasket but it's in there. No fuss, no mess.

You know, there's this thing called the internet that makes it kinda futile for newspapers to try and hide stuff.

In any case, it's up at GoComics. Spread the word.

[craftyboro]

What will do in our paper? When there are not enough geographically concentrated subscribers to entice people to deliver it at 4 in the morning.........

[Kyle Barger]

We've come a long way from when Pogo was banished for making a little too much fun of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. (Walt Kelly maintained that kids don't read the comics page all that much anyway.)

[scharrison]

Corbs, I'm assuming you meant to say, "out of the recycling bin".

Don't make me cry on a Monday...

[polifrog]

Isn't there a natural selectivity that is being ignored by Ribar?

Kids naturally gravitate toward the comics section. (I did and often still do.) Although kids may be selective about which ones they read when they get there, some will read.

There really is no need for leftists to continuously force their morality on others, especially the youngest.

[Andrew Brod]

I get it. When the message is conservative in nature, it's a question of free speech. When it's liberal, it's about leftists forcing their morality on others.

In any case, the "leftists" at the N&R just removed the strip. Take yes for an answer for a change.

[justcorbly]

Ah, yes, all over North Carolina, 5 years olds are settling down to breakfast with a copy of the local daily and turning first to the comics.

The kids, you know, are staring at the tube over their Cheerios.

[Dan]

Doonesbury used to run in the editorial section of the paper, every day except maybe Sun.

[Thomas]

Maybe they just didn't want to burden their reduced staff with the storm of outraged correspondence that would follow a pro choice strip.

I really don't think it's about exposing innocent eyes to the horror of satire.

[Ishmael]

And now for the thin-skinned among us...some censorship!

[polifrog]

Brod:

I get it. When the message is conservative in nature, it's a question of free speech. When it's liberal, it's about leftists forcing their morality on others.

Is it only a free speech issue if a private company makes the choice? The left has made it clear that when government forces the church to act against doctrine that there is no religious exemption to be found in the 1st.

Do you people believe that the Bill of Rights limits private companies or government? You certainly seem to think it limits the former.

Reeducate yourselves.

Anyway, when has conservatism forced its morality on anyone? Conservatism is the proverbial rape victim yelling no (when the left isn't busy muzzling their speech through PC canards) in response to leftist morality imposed through government.

Conservatism's preference is for morality to be, as much as possible, self imposed individually or via social mores rather than morality be imposed via law.

The left prefers law.

[Dave Ribar]

Poli?

"When has conservatism forced its morality on anyone?" Really? Here in NC in the last year conservatives have
- Put restrictions on same-sex marriage civil rights up for a vote
- Placed restrictions on women's reproductive choices
- Required that women seeking to terminate pregnancies hear a state-sponsored screed
- Restricted the availability of cold medicine

Conservatives actually tout most of these measures as indicators of the strength of conservative principles ( http://www.conservative.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NorthCarolinaStateRatingsGuide.pdf ).

[Ishmael]

"Conservatism's preference is for morality to be, as much as possible, self imposed individually or via social mores rather than morality be imposed via law."

See: Comstock Laws.

[Andrew Brod]

Frog's comment reveals that he isn't really a libertarian. Libertarians care about free speech regardless of who's doing the talking. Frog clearly roots for one side over the other.

I know. Big surprise.

[justcorbly]

So that was leftists in the VA legislature who passed a law about inserting a probe into a woman's vagina?

About "the church" being forced to do something counter to its doctrine: Is it really the government's obligation to ignore what people do when they act in a secular capacity and claim to be motivated by the doctrine of one church or another?

On morality versus law: There are as many differing moralities as there are people. Law exists because people disagree about what is moral and what is immoral. If we all adhered to the same notions of right and wrong, and lived by it, we'd have no need of law because no one would do anything anyone else thought was wrong.

[Ed Cone]

UPDATE: N&R responds to reader pressure, will post strips online.

[Billy Jones]

"UPDATE: N&R responds to reader pressure, will post strips online."

What's the point, we've already seen it? And tell them to quit throwing trash in my yard!

[Fec]

Really great post and thread. Thanks.

[polifrog]

A newspaper can exercise free speech by either choosing to print or not choosing to print. When one, or more frequently many, oppose the paper's decision either to print or not to print those individuals attempt to deny the free speech choices of the newspaper.

Only if government were actively attempting to censor the paper would your complaints have merit. It is not, therefore your complaints are essentially a private sector attempt at denying free speech to a newspaper.

Dave Ribar:

- Put restrictions on same-sex marriage civil rights up for a vote
- Placed restrictions on women's reproductive choices
- Required that women seeking to terminate pregnancies hear a state-sponsored screed
- Restricted the availability of cold medicine

Your first example is an example of Conservatives resisting the imposition of morality, not imposing it. Same sex marriage is not currently available.

Your second example is vague but I presume it has to to with limiting abortion which is not reproduction and represents a morality imposed by the left via the court. The right is still resisting the imposition of the left's morality in this regard.

Your third example, again, has to do with morality wrongly imposed by the left via the court. Human dignity and human rights simply mean more to the right than to the left, hence the belief that humanity begins at conception.

Your fourth example is devoid of morality. It represents a mechanical response to meth.

And:

Brod:

Frog's comment reveals that he isn't really a libertarian. Libertarians care about free speech regardless of who's doing the talking. Frog clearly roots for one side over the other.

Wrong. I support the choice of the paper in how it chooses to exercise its speech. Print or do not, the choice is the paper's.

You wish to control their speech. Sad.

And:

justcorbly:

So that was leftists in the VA legislature who passed a law about inserting a probe into a woman's vagina?

This is yet another example of the right protesting the left's imposition of their morality in reference to abortion via the court.

[Andrew Brod]

"You wish to control their speech. Sad."

I said no such thing. What's sad is that you apparently believe that objecting to someone else's decision is equivalent to wanting to control it.

[polifrog]

Brod:

I said no such thing. What's sad is that you apparently believe that objecting to someone else's decision is equivalent to wanting to control it.

That is what the left says of the right when it comes to contraception except.

And, yes, you were the one to raise it to the level of a free speech issue.

I get it. When the message is conservative in nature, it's a question of free speech. When it's liberal, it's about leftists forcing their morality on others.

In any case, the "leftists" at the N&R just removed the strip.

[Thomas]

So where are they hiding it on the site? Can't find it this morning.