Two precepts that the LADY GODIVA exists to draw to your attention to are 1) if 'everybody' is against something then that something should be considered especially carefully; it might be acceptable or even positively right and, 2) if 'everybody' is for something then that something should be considered especially carefully; it may well be not worth having or even positively wrong. These are not just the precepts of cussedness - although 'bloody-minded' people are like that - they are a recogniton of the hidden persuasion by custom and the half-hidden persuasion by the brain washers, the proagandists and advertisers of all sorts (including editors of small circulation periodicals). There is a third, cosier, precept, 3) that if 'everybody' is more or less uncertain about something then that something is indeed uncertain. Head counting reveals uncertainty fairly reliably; it reveals certainty far less so.

'Freedom of choice' has several catches in it. It is a useless freedom if you have not the money to act on your choice - although it is not necessarily fair to deny freedom of choice to those who can, perhaps deservedly, afford to choose. 'The dog in the manger' is not at all admirable. A much more important catch in it is that real freedom of choice depends on real access to information and information, at that, that is not slanted by people with axes to grind pretending that they have not.

Theoretically a complete freedom to say, write, draw, paint, photgraph, record, publish and broadcast would be half the solution to the problem of 'freedom of informed choice'. The other half of the theorteical solution to this practical problem is free acces to the means of spreading information and opinion and a sufficient standard of education to enable everyone to do all this effectively.