Origin and Pros and Cons
The term “gag rule” originated in the mid-1830s when the U.S. House of Representatives barred discussion or referral to committee of antislavery petitions. Such rules are often criticized because they abridge freedom of speech, which is normally given extremely high value when exercised by members of legislative or decision-making bodies (see Parliamentary privilege and Congressional immunity). On the other hand, gag rules are typically defended on the ground that they help preserve consensus by placing potentially divisive controversies "off the table" of debate.
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“Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)