cioran: I'd be interested in that, actually.
I know Germany (and a lot of the EU) censors books quite openly (especially when they relate to the holocaust or Naziism). France also had a ban on books detailing suicide & euthanasia (they still might).
A few years back, someone visiting me from overseas remarked that I had the most "illegal" books he'd ever seen (of course, that was in his country, not America where eclectic taste in books isn't a crime yet). Ah, gotta love those socialist, book-burning EU folks.
DukeNukemForever: Ahm, you don't really know germany, because in that case you wouldn't combine book burning and socialist in one phrase. Also you don't really understand why there are some books (Mein Kampf, Holocaust lies etc.) are forbidden for sale. Maybe you should take a deeper look on germanys past and maybe talk to some jewish people. This books are not allowed for public sale because they discriminate and offened other people. By the way, you will find some of this books without problems in special libraries for historical education. So when you are really interested in history, there is no problem to read them.
Yes, there is also censorship on extreme violence in movies and games, but on the other hand there is no problem with bad language or more sexual content. About sense or nonsense of this we can discuss.
Hate to break it to you, but censorship and rampant government media control (and education control) was one of the things that got the Germans to Naziism in the first place. Ditto on the Soviets and Stalinistic authoritarianism (he banned books, too). Big Brother has nothing to do with left or right. Also, Fascistic movements (with the exceptions of Apartheid and debatably, Naziism) have marked similarities with Marxism in practice (theoretically, Marxism is libertarian socialist proletarian, but in practice it's always authoritarian/agrarian), specifically in collectivization. totalitarianism, repression, state religion statism, and overall irrationality. Read A.J. Gregor some time.
Also, from what I'm aware, the US doesn't have any out and out Fascists elected to office or mainstream Fascist political parties that have ever gotten much more than <1% of the vote. Can't say that about countries with censorship e.g. Australia, France (Poujad, Le Pen, et al), Germany. I mean actual out and out "I heart Nazis and Benito" fascists. I'm not getting into semantics over whether mainstream gov't's are fascistic.
In the US, we see these people for what they are - nutjobs. No veil of secrecy or mystery helps their cause. Sadly, even the US is moving more and more away from this freedom of speech, but it's still there.
So some books offend people? Big deal. The most offensive thing to me is covering up history or art for the sake of a few bruised egos. That kind of paternalism and nanny statism infuriates me.