Maz Jobrani Quotes

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

Do we really want the FCC to conduct investigations and issue warnings to radio talk show hosts nationwide who simply discuss the important issues of our time? The Constitution says 'freedom of speech,' not 'freedom of government-approved fair speech in rationed amounts.'

If you don't think a television news show represents the truth, you can turn off your TV. If you don't think a magazine represents the truth, you can cancel your subscription. You have the right to expose yourself to whatever information you want. But to have the government prescribing what the truth is or limiting the information available for the citizen is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

No man, who is depending purely upon the words of the Constitution, will ever say that we have unabridged freedom of speech and press so long as there is any law which prescribes a penalty for the utterance of anyone's sentiments …

If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship.

Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.

Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and least tolerable infringement on First Amendment Rights.

The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

Censorship is a really big deal, but online you don't have anything. You have slightly more freedom.

The ultimate censorship is the flick of the dial.

The notion that the First Amendment has no limitations whatsoever is balderdash.

You watch the Supreme Court in action on these cases, and they are a conflicted court. However, when it comes to speech issues generally, the court has been protective.

By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.

I think if you open the door to government control of television, then you let in a host of questions about rights.

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

Most of the press is in league with government, or with the status quo.

The censorship is such on television in the U.S. that films like mine don't stand a chance.

A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up.

I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

I find it very offensive when the government tells me what I can and cannot watch. Censor yourself.

The notion of artistic responsibility begs questions with no satisfactory conclusions, the most inevitable and ineffectual being that we should just keep thinking and talking about it, given that the alternative - a governmental body monitoring the movies we make and see - is unacceptable.

I worry about censorship in many parts of the world.