I see no room to argue about whether or not it is censorship and this in effect what you argued when you claimed no one was trying to silence since that is what censorship is. If pointing that out is offense then my only defense is I am offended by censorship and more offended by trying to give it a new coat of paint and then asking everyone to believe it is something else.

You argued that none is telling her to silent and I guess if you look at it narrowly enough that may be true but they are certainly trying to send the message that everyone else needs to keep their mouths shut or suffer the same fate. This isn’t a mild rebuke, the woman has worked her whole trying to compete in these games and she is being denied that because some bureaucrats took offense to an off color joke and her politcial party.

I see lots of mention of that political party and that certainly smacks of political motivation behind the censorship. I don’t know anything about this party she belongs to except that it has been called far right but one of two things are true. Either the party is more KKK than it is Tea Party and they promote hate and violence in which case sheshould have been banned regardless of the joke or it is a party that objects to having Greece over run by African immigrants in which case she has a right to that opinion regardless of the politics of the committee members and it is highly in inappropriate for them to bring her political beliefs into the discussion.

I do think there are times when censorship is required but I also believe we need to always keep that as far towards acceptance as possible. Banning someone from the Olympics for a tweeting an unfunny off color joke falls well short of that. If what she said offends people let that hurt with the lack of endorsements but don’t have a small unelected body say she is unworthy of representing her country because of a joke and her political party. That is blatant censorship and not the necessary evil sort of censorship but the sort that requires group think and suppresses the free exchange of idea.