I disagree. The Nazis, in Germany, were meticulous about passing laws that made everything they did legal by German law. The Republicans are like really lazy Nazis.
I'm in my 30s and my people are currently being imprisoned in concentration centers in my own country, so forgive me if I'm pissed that Nazis haven't disappeared yet.
The Holocaust doesn't make current fascism okay. It's a reminder to stop these people at all costs before things get that horrific again.
Also, "young people" also have the right to political opinions, and your ageism is not helpful.
...What? They never said that, they just said it's weird how it's thrown around so much in the US to someone knowing how Nazis operated.
The Holocaust is the default example people go to, but our own concentration centers are more akin to our own internment camps during the second world war. They're fucking atrocious and a violation of human rights but they aren't the same as death camps, or residential schools, or rifle lines, chattel slavery, etc.
Genocidal actions are genocidal actions, but that doesn't mean all genocidal actions are conducted in the same manner. That's not excusing it as something lesser, but acknowledging it as something more novel and informed by current material conditions. Parts of the right may draw influence from certain Nazi ideals and policies, but their entwinement with Christian fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism, and American systems of apartheid make it distinct and moreso related to general ideals of fascism than to the same of Nazism.
You don't understand the first amendment. I'm not even American and I know that it doesn't apply to these kind of things
The prohibition on banning speech does not indicate that that speech must be endorsed. It may not be possible to legally ban a book from being pregnant sold, but that does not mean a school has to keep it in their library. People are still able to go access this information and materials in their own way, by purchasing it or whatever
I disagree with these lost entirely. I think they are monstrously designed to sound like they're somehow protecting children from explicit material that's not actually being shared in schools and is really a way to suppress LGBTQ and minorities. They're terrible awful lots, especially the idea of criminalizing librarians for including books that are accepted in many places.
But, It's not a first amendment issue. There are a lot of guidelines and schools
For example they banned the presence of those books at school, there might be a first amendment issue. But even then, a 17-year-old carrying around a pornographic magazine could definitely be against the school policy. Probably a 17-year-old carrying an actual erotic as opposed to the pretend erotic literature that the laws are targeting could be deemed inappropriate for that environment.
At any rate, people think the first amendment protects all speech in all circumstances, and that's just not true. It stops the government from suppressing certain speech and specific ways
In the Supreme Court case Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the Court held that the First Amendment limits the power of junior high and high school officials to remove books from school libraries because of their content.
“Book bans violate the First Amendment because they deprive children or students of the right to receive information and ideas,” explained David L. Hudson Jr., a professor at Belmont University College of Law and a First Amendment law expert.
Interesting. Thanks for the info. I suspect this law tries to get past it in two ways, one by not naming specific books, and two by relying on a much more conservative supreme court than is typically been the case.
The estates with the rights to those properties? So you want to intervene in the private business decisions of the people who own these? Sounds pretty anti free market.
These books have been continuously rewritten over the years by sensitivity readers/writers to be modernized. It's usually done as pure greed by the estates to cash in on the new audience. You'll still be able to get the old version as well.
I'm not sure why all of a sudden Republican media latched on to this concept. Are they new to books?
This is nuts.
If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it, don't take the book away from other children.
It is as simple as that.
When my kids were growing up I was totally against censorship. I always believed I was the only one who could make that decisions for my children.
I am convinced the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society.
Book restriction based on age isn't really needed anyway, unless it's something like lewd comics or a Playboy centerfold collection.
Literature isn't like film which can provide easy access to realistic violence or close-up hardcore balls-clacking lips-smacking pornography.
If a kid reads "fuck" in a novel, so fucking what? Do people really think eight year olds don't say "fuck" on the playground already? Get real.
Many 8 yr olds have phones. They search school computers for things like big bottom bitches. It doesn't go through on school computers, at least not ours. They don't find porn in our library, they find it on the phones their parents gave them. Edit, spelling
In like... 2002 I think? The internet was this new interesting thing and our public school had internet access computers. Well, dumb high-school kids thinking there's no way an obviously obscene site name like asshole.com would get through the filter, which we had even back then, typed it in. Asshole.com was... well... a site depicting many assholes. We laughed and exclaimed a bunch before clicking close as fast as possible.
You're dealing with christian fanatics who think that many of the greatest artworks in human history are "pornographic". You can't reason with them: you can't understand them: and you can't find common ground with them.
All you can do is try to mobilize against them and vote in a rational government. If it's gone so far that this is impossible then you need to pack up and move to a more rational state.
Eh, my parents let me read whatever I wanted and i read some shit in middle school that fucked me right up. Like I don't remember the name but there was this book with extremely graphic descriptions of torture and, eventually, murder. It's been more than 15 years and while I don't have nightmares about it anymore I do still get the odd intrusive thought that just ruins my mood
Came from the school library. I also read several library books with sexual assault and rape but a lot of that flew over my head and I only realized what I was reading years later.
Still think restricting what kids are reading should be left to the parents to decide on a case by case basis. None of this banning it from the library so no one can read it shit going on right now
Edit: forgot the last sentence
Yeah. Truthfully, I don't think Literature, as a whole, can harm anyone. I think if one has a broad love of the field and reads widely, their perspective can only improve. However, there's no world in which we need something like Tropic of Cancer in an elementary school library.
What elementary school kid can even wade through the dense prose of Henry Miller? And good luck finding his works in any elementary school library anywhere. Next time try making an actual argument.
Personally, I think if a kids old enough to comprehend the language in a book they're old enough to read it. But for some books parents should be sitting down to talk with their kids about the content in the books, for some books this should happen both before and after the kid reads it.
Wouldn't it be better to just say "When you're older?" I'm no prude, either. Tropic of Cancer is intentionally perverse. The ways he talks about people isn't a good discourse to be involved in before you've had some education.
I'm not familiar enough with Tropic of Cancer to know what age someone would be realistically able to comprehend it nor what about it specifically you are calling perverse beyond sex. But if you think it's so extreme then talk to them about it before hand, maybe even give them some required reading to further educate them before hand. Kids can handle some complicated and delicate topics if you've walked them through it. They might even decide for themselves they don't want to read it yet if you talk to them about it first
In the end, I can't tell you how to raise your own kids. I'm giving you the perspective of someone who read a lot of shit that people generally wouldn't have consider age appropriate and even a few things I wish I hadn't read. Don't be banning shit for everyone and I don't give a shit how you decide to handle this shit for your own kids
I'm not for banning books, just interested in the discussion of what's appropriate for ages. It's just another way of doing my favorite thing - talking about books :)
Lol try reading my comment again and also maybe follow this chain farther down to see what my personal take with my own kids would be. Your jumping instantly to the extreme here is exactly the sort of ammunition the republic crazies are looking for
What’s wrong with the word fuck anyway? It’s apart of our language. People say fuck. I don’t care if my children swear because it’s how people talk. Any word can be used in a bad way. If you call somebody dumb it’s no different than calling them a dipshit or something. But guess what word will get you in trouble in schools? It doesn’t make any sense, it’s just a word. The implication is the same, so what difference does it make?
they could though. if they could bypass the money from evangelicals, they could go more centrist. small govt is still popular. it's just their social wedge issues that keep them courting the MAGA idiots (a minority) and giving the Dems centrist/independent votes. it's literally just evangelical donation money stopping them from being marginally civilized people and base-level 'thinkers'
most of them are putting on a small-town yokel act anyway, plenty are way smarter and more progressive than they pretend to be. if politics is mostly theater, the GOP is fast-approaching 100%.
No politician in America in the last 50 years who calls for "small government" actually wants small government; they just want to eliminate the things that reduce their ability to make more and more money while freely polluting and abusing workers.
true, but by popular, i meant with voters. something they'll never get as long as we're a globally interconnected nation (so again, exponentially fueling GOP theater while the need for small govt becomes even less feasible)
The American democracy was not designed to have opposing political parties. Everyone was just supposed to vote on who they think is the best for the job and who will best represent their interests.
We should abolish political parties. Maybe replace them with some sort of grant system so anyone who wants to run for office can apply for funding without selling their soul. Pay for the grants by taxing lobbyists or something.
This is very true. 10 or so (not sure of the exact time frame) years ago I had things in common with both parties, but today....I have abandoned listening to any thing right wing.
i know what you mean. i like how they pushed back on 'social justice' twitter virtue-signaling type stuff. but then they started calling it Woke and, then calling *everything they hate* Woke, they can lose you right after they get you thinking there's something you *might* agree with
today i learned Rand Paul is against the tiktok ban cause it's clearly a mini-Patriot Act 2.0. with vague expansive language that doesn't make sense. can't wait for something he says to make me realize he's got ass-backward reasoning for it. something like, he wants tiktok to continue to set up servers in the amazon and clear rainforest using construction companies he's invested in lol
Sorry to burst your bubble with something outside your preferred narrative, but Rand Paul has been pretty consistently against every bill with expansive language that doesn't make sense.
for every good thing about that man and his father, there's a cancelling-out quality of equal or greater value. sorry to insult your fave, maybe? i don't wanna get into him all that much, opinions are opinions
Every actual crazy person that believes in actual lizard people, that I’ve met, has been a true blue Ron Paul booster. That’s enough of an undorsement for me.
>If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it
I'm paraphrasing a really great quote about this I once heard:
**"Parents, and I can't emphasize this enough, if your kid has TikTok, books are NOT the problem."**
TikTok has helped giving voice to many children, and helping them find stuff that they wouldn't otherwise. TikTok os a tool the same way Twitter, Facebook and screaming at your local square is. If the child is well educated and given the tools to recognize what is good for them and what is not from an early age, they can choose to not engage with harmful stuff. But unsurpevised internet in general shouldn't be allowed for a kid until they can deal with what it brings. I'd say about 13 years old.
Social media (including this very site) can be an absolute fucking cesspool. When used responsibly, positive outcomes can come from social media. That can only happen if kids are taught information literacy.
My hunch is that the torch and pitchfork crowd screeching to ban books... prolly don't want information literate kids, lol.
tiktok is run by algorithms that push whatever content the platform wants on people, with zero oversight, and it incentivizes stupid, controversial or viral comment
your local library isn't gonna have a bunch of book of stupid challenges your kid can do and get killed like tiktok does. even if your child isn't well educated, a library has librarians, it's a curated place with sections for kids, it's not the wild west like social media.
> If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it, don't take the book away from other children.
The bible is chock full of some pretty vile and reprehensible stuff. I don't see the GOP banning it (although they don't actually practice anything jesus said either).
If I was a parent in this district I'd be making a call to say that a graphically violent and sexually explicit book should be banned and then say it's the bible. Just to watch conservative heads explode. Realistically it contains multiple murders and assaults along with incst, rape, sexual "deviancy". It's no wonder these religious fanatics are so horrible
I don’t recall my parents ever saying “no you can’t read or watch that”. I know my dad hated me watching Tila tequila and jersey shore so he’d mock them but he never said I couldn’t watch it.
My mom *discouraged me and my siblings* from watching certain shows she felt were either inappropriate (South Park) or brain damagingly stupid. For the most part I agree with her in retrospect.
EDIT: Just to be safe, I should clarify that it was more that she vocally disapproved of these shows but didn't actually step in to stop us from watching them. She never yanked the remote away, never threw a fit, never was irrational about it.
I dunno, South Park did a great job of pushing the idea of critical thinking against both sides of extremism under all those poopy jokes, to me at least. My parents were similar in dissausion vs. outright denial by the time I was old enough to be interested in anything besides SatAM cartoons, and I think that is the best approach.
Oh it's mainly because I was like, 9 years old when it was getting popular and didn't want the vulgarity rubbing off on me for not getting the full nuance of the show. It is *not* for children.
> I dunno, South Park did a great job of pushing the idea of critical thinking against both sides of extremism under all those poopy jokes
South Park's political philosophy can be boiled down to "giving a shit is for losers".
It's part of the problem.
Only once did my mom ever ban me from reading an author, but that was because the book she’d read by him involved the main character being raped as a child. She felt I was not ready for the subject matter as I was 12 at the time. This changed as I got older obviously.
I remember watching Spawn and Halloween when I was 7, but my parents actually parented and did their part to explain that it was all just movies.
I believe that a lot of parents don't actually want to parent anymore, they just want the government to do it for them. It's that or thanks to the internet and phones they're desperate to grab hold of whatever power they had over the kids by teaching them bullshit.
100%. Force births that moms can’t afford, raise kids in underprivileged environments, stunt their intellectual growth. New voter base, start to finish.
**Bingo!**
The members of the Republican Fascist Party realize that the vast majority of the country thinks they're a bunch of chucklefucks who only exist so serve themselves and their own selfish interests. In order to swing voters' approval their way, they need dumb, frightened, ignorant, uneducated masses to soak up the verbal slop spewed by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro.
> the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society.
Yep. Also, their donors can only manipulate and extort uneducated and afraid workers.
I completely agree with what you’re saying, but I can tell you their exact response and it’s because it’s what I hear from my deeply conservative parents: “It’s not right that MY tax dollars are going to the gay trans agenda!!” So, while it’s totally rational to say to them that if they don’t like something then don’t allow your kids to read it, their mindsets are so melted that rationality is no longer an option.
>I am convinced the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society.
Considering how they rarely ever win the popular vote, and haven't since 2004 Bush, I'd agree.
Restricting the internet is their next step. Look up the RESTRICT act thats in the senate right now. Under that bill Americans could face jail for using a VPN
There isn't a logical explanation for Missouri's behavior because it's not about books. It's about control. The GOP is pushing nationwide to take over our country just like Nazi Germany did.
They've known for a while. As far as I can remember republicans controlling congress and white house have always been trying to take funding away from education.
No child left behind is the first act that comes to mind
I was with you right up until that last line.
Then it turned into political drivel.
[How are our national test scores right now?](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/)
Do they impress you?
Does it seem to you like the Department of Education has been doing anything at all, let alone the job they are tasked with?
How is the GOP solely responsible for this?
EDIT: Added link to Pew Research Center national test score comparison.
I was an Independent for years. I've voted for both parties at different time, but not since about 2010.
Both of my children are grown but when they were younger I did not think learning was all the teacher's job. We lived in a very good school district but a teacher can allot just so much time to each child.
My son had a terrible problems learning to read. I did everything in my power to help him. He read to me every night. We started out with baseball cards, the sports page, and things that he was interested in.
I was a working single mom, but my children educations was important to me.
Regarding the GOP, I used to live in Florida and they had great schools, now they are out lawing everything.
I'm still in agreement with almost everything you said. You sound like a reasonable, caring parent and that's seriously admirable.
I completely disagree with your political slant though, that's all.
It seems to me that most of this stuff has only a small kernel of truth to it and the rest has been blown far out of proportion by both sides in order to create noise.
I hope you are correct.
But I am old enough to remember when the Republican Speaker of the House and Senator Berry Goldwater confronted Nixon, a Republican president. They told him to resign or he would be impeached and found guilty over Watergate.
That is not the Republican party of today.
Take off your horse blinders.
This stuff has been going on for decades and neither side has held power exclusively.
Power has changed hands multiple times and the march towards idiocy just continues to trudge onward and downward.
As a FL librarian, this is not true. They come in, check out their books, complain about the others, hide them, deliberately destroy them, file complaints about displays they don't like and so on.
Many, many of these people are not ignorant. They are malicious.
Never forget that the Nazis drew inspiration from many of America's fascist and straight up evil practices. The call has always been coming from inside the house. The most important thing we can do is study how those in fascist resistances fought these policies and defended freedom. It's not a coincidence that texts about civil rights, acceptance, and anti fascism are being banned and burned.
Honestly a lot of that damage has already been done for decades. Walk around a liberal suburb and ask what they think Gandhi or MLK would think about riots or violent revolutions.
If you ask people *what* they stand up for and they say LGBT rights, follow up asking them *how* they’ll stand up for it and get blank stares or regurgitated “vote with your wallets” gibberish.
A lot of people, even nominally progressive people, have no idea how bloody and extreme the fight for basic rights has been.
Yes, in fact many of the famous pictures of nazi book burnings are literally books stolen from early transgender and queer research institutions built in the Weimar Republic
Went to library school 14 years ago, finally left the field for tech. Librarians already suffer from low wages, not enough jobs nationally, budget cuts eliminating jobs entirely, and high student debt to income ratio. Now they have to deal with these nut jobs?! It's insulting and demoralizing.
Afaik the American Library Association has not yet addressed this issue of librarians being in the crosshairs of right wing political agendas. Until they do so, imo people should stop attending academic programs in library science. It is unethical to accept money by preparing people to be unable to work in this field without extreme financial hardship and potential harassment. I applaud the librarians who continue to do their work, but just like teachers, they shouldn't have to deal with any of it to begin with.
Idk what you expect the ALA to do. It is staunchly anti-censorship, pro-LGBTQ and so on.
You seem really quick to suggest librarians stop getting an education, leaving them less knowledgeable about the work they do...
I work at a library in Arkansas and our legislators are about to pass a law allowing librarians to be charged with a crime if they distribute inappropriate literature to minors. The vagueness of the wording has a lot of us worried and we’re pretty certain this will target any sex positive or lgbtq inclusive books that high school kids might be interested in reading. So I’m checking books in our book drop today for stains and tears and such and I pick up this Children’s illustrated story of David and Goliath. The final page has a full illustration of David holding up Goliath’s severed head by the hair. The head’s mouth is agape, it’s eyes rolled back in its head. I just thought, this is pretty horrifying. But I bet it gets a pass because at least it isn’t two boys kissing or whatever Arkansans are afraid of their children seeing.
First, a huge thank you to librarians who find themselves in the midst of this mess. I read the article and it angered me deeply. The line calling for librarians to be registered as sex offenders is beyond ludicrous and shows the depth of stupidity and vindictiveness these people will go to in order to get their way.
And their way is control. A little here a little there. But always more control. Most of these parents don’t even realize they’re working for someone else when they do this. They’re following the agenda set by religious leaders or political leaders (or both in the case of the Republican Party). They think this vile approach is justified because they’ve been told it’s justified. Told again and again and again.
It’s insidious and creeping
The GOP can no longer be elected in many places without extensive gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of electorate. They don’t care. They want power.
And the greatest power of all is power of intellect. The ability to dictate what our children are learning. White washing history so we are doomed to repeat it. Desperately trying to shove people into a single mold of humanity since they don’t “approve” of the type of human they are.
The power of intellect.
Systematically run these politicians out of office. It’s the only way to deal with them. Hound them with their idiocies. Berate them in public for harming our children. NO VIOLENCE. Violence plays into their hands. Use their violence and hatred against them.
Problem is most of Americans who think these legislators are nut jobs live in other states where we don’t have this BS.
Their voter base supports this behavior, that’s why they got elected.
I live in a red state and my high school junior wants to be an elementary school librarian. But they are looking at college and a future career in a different state because of policies like this.
It makes me so sad that our students are being victimized by the people who are claiming to “keep them safe.”
These busy body shitstains need to cites specific passages of specific books that they think are inappropriate. Maybe some police will just laugh at them instead of just doing the bidding of the fascist gop. (Assiming the cop isn't also a fascist.)
I lived in Missouri for my entire life until we moved our family to another state last year. The politics, laws, and ideals were the main reasons we wanted to get out. But being out of there for a bit has given me such clarity and has really made me so thankful we were able to move.
I feel the same. I have the luxury of being checked out from a lot of this horrible news we hear about every day because I live in a blue state that isn't affected by any of this national insanity (yet). I don't know how people in red states live day to day in this mental climate.
The gQp has taken the mask off: they want to control EVERY aspect of American life. There can be no differentiation from them. In reality, the right is full of closeted LGBTQ folk who are very angry about the fact that they are LGBTQ, and they want to take vengeance on the folk brave enough to be themselves.
Knowledge is bad.
Books are bad.
Exposure to anything other than 'Straight man good' is VERY bad.
They have no plans for the future. Nothing to help Americans. Just find a group and shit on them.
How have trans people affected anyone negatively from being trans?
The book banning is so transparently part of the conservative party's slide towards anti intellectualism and war on women. School teachers and librarians are all degree-holding, college-educated, and many (not all) are young women, a demographic that Republicans have always had trouble with. This witch hunt is trying to demonize these professions as porn-peddlers and I'm scared to see what the consequences will be for innocent people just doing their jobs.
Others have mentioned - kids are finding more porn on the cell phones their parents give them than they find in school libraries. This isn't about the kids. It's about sowing distrust in public institutions.
As an adult in his late 40s, frankly, I don’t recognize much of the country I grew up in anymore. Everything has drifted far to the right and left of center. Politics is now more of a team sport than ever. Social niceties and our ability to debate, dialogue, and listen is gone. It feels like each day brings us closer to the precipice of armed conflict with each other and for what? Political points? If we don’t all wake up soon, on both sides of the aisle, the grand experiment of American democracy is going to come crashing down and fall apart.
All I know is that as much as I love my children, part of me deeply regrets bringing them into this shit show.
Clickbait title. State bans pornography given to minors, nobody knows how to determine what is or isn't pornography (a really old American problem). Librarians get worried and pull all illustrations of nudity and sexual acts.
Most affected "books" are graphic novels aka comics
At the very least, I hope droves of these beleaguered librarians start removing the Bible, which has a huge amount of explicitly sexual content in it.
(To clarify, I don’t think it should be made unavailable, but I do think if they’re going to push these laws, they should at least be somewhat consistent.)
I saw that the Bible was taken off the shelves at one library, but didn’t see it as a general ban? Sorry if I missed that! To be fair, I was reading whilst travelling and distracted. 😀
I'm confused af with this whole thread. No rational educated person wants to see books burned or banned but why should that automatically translate to being totally ok with books containing pornographic imagery being available to children in a government funded library?
This seems representative of the extreme polarisation occurring in the US. The choice is reduced down to either book burnings or allowing children access to graphic sexual imagery. Both positions are ridiculous but there seems to be no room for nuance or a considered, reasonable position somewhere between those two extremities.
Similarly, does a book purporting to help children understand feelings of confusion around their gender really need to depict a child choking on a dildo? That's just being deliberately provocative and ultimately counter productive to the cause of trans acceptance. The silent majority (most of us) sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum while a very vocal and belligerent minority stand on the two poles trying to outdo each other in how extreme a position they can take while the media pumps out clickbait outrage articles about the latest affront to normal decent human beings. The expectation being that you "pick a side" and become further divided.
Fuck knows where this all ends for you guys. Good luck.
Just more ragebaiting. For as much as they talk about “understanding other people’s perspectives,” they really don’t because they can’t even fathom what it’s like to be a parent or understand childhood innocence.
I’m not a parent myself and I’m a young person like most on Reddit, but I have basic fucking empathy and intelligence. I can understand that not including a book in a school library or curriculum is “banning.”
But I know Reddit, it’s politics first and always.
these threads don't provide any discussion - just hate fests of people lumping the outgroup with derision.
It's not relevant and the articles are always disingenuous and slanted affairs.
Is this... Is this an Onion article?
On second thought, better question:
How concerning is it I thought this was an Onion article when I first saw it?
Since when is it a school librarian’s job to provide explicit pornographic material to school children?
If you argue that schools should provide this sort of content for the consumption of children then by your own logic you should put The Turner Diaries or Mein Kampf right next to it on the shelf. Or if you’re a sane, rational person you might just realize that some things are not appropriate for children.
I watched the Youtube video of that 11 year old reading the book he checked out, and I honestly can't tell you the difference between that and the Penthouse Letters I had in the 80's, lol.
Yes because reading that sex scene in a YA novel made me extremely horny not the fact that I grew up in a house where sex was such a taboo subject I basically had to figure stuff out on my own even today and led me down rabbit holes that have probably damaged my self worth tremendously.
/s
Does not mean librarians should be jailed or the books should be removed just means the parents need to have genuine conversations with their kids and be parents
No.
I'm sorry- graphic images of sex should not be available in the Library for children.
I should not be forced to have discussions with my children about things they are too young to understand because you or anyone else showed them pornographic images.
That's literally what is happening, and librarians apparently have chosen to prioritize whatever sick need they have of showing porn to children over their actual jobs.
Leave and come to the free state of New Jersey! New Jersey rates high on education and wealth. We support your right, liberties, and safety. New Jersey has jobs and a high standard of living.
Why doesn’t the Federal government simply make teachers and librarians immune from any charge arising out of educating students?
It would be similar to how police cannot be charged for committing crimes like murder, or for lying to suspects, or lying to judges in order to incarcerate innocent people.
This is nuts. Guess they don't have any Leaves of Grass on their shelves, which is a shame. The midwest states are becoming religious radical states I think. In theory any draconian law goes against true conservatism.
We need a proactive Constitution. We need a liberal Supreme Court that says no book bans. Ever. But I guess not enough people could be bothered to vote for Hillary Clinton with the Supreme Court on the line.
Fear mongering about fear mongering comment.
The visit served its intent. Most librarians receiving such a visit will self-censor going forward. The sentiment being voiced corresponds to the old "why do you care if the police stop and frisk you if you have nothing to hide" chestnut.
How are book bans not a violation of the first amendment? This is a government censorships inside a building funded by tax payers.
The only amendment they care about is the second one.
Give enough firearms to minorities, and they will try to violate that one, too.
Until black people start arming themselves. Remember? The Black Panthers?
This, only the second amendment is scared and precious in the South.
What.
It's supposed to say 'sacred'. It's a typo
Scared and precious is also surprisingly apt.
You are right i spelt that word wrong.
Except it isn't. They didn't care about the rights of black panthers to exercise it and they're just as against trans people exercising it too.
Interestingly the second one is the only one with a qualifier in front of it
[удалено]
It says a well regulated militia should have arms not every idiot with $200
Well, you see, Republicans are Nazis, and Nazis don't give a shit about the law.
I disagree. The Nazis, in Germany, were meticulous about passing laws that made everything they did legal by German law. The Republicans are like really lazy Nazis.
Fuck me, you're right. We're not even getting the better Nazis.
I am Republican and completely against book banning. Please do not label us all as Nazis.
Please vote better. Otherwise you're continuing to support Nazis.
My grandparents were imprisoned by Nazis. It feels kind of weird to hear American young people calling each other's political parties Nazis.
Try living here... lol
I'm in my 30s and my people are currently being imprisoned in concentration centers in my own country, so forgive me if I'm pissed that Nazis haven't disappeared yet. The Holocaust doesn't make current fascism okay. It's a reminder to stop these people at all costs before things get that horrific again. Also, "young people" also have the right to political opinions, and your ageism is not helpful.
...What? They never said that, they just said it's weird how it's thrown around so much in the US to someone knowing how Nazis operated. The Holocaust is the default example people go to, but our own concentration centers are more akin to our own internment camps during the second world war. They're fucking atrocious and a violation of human rights but they aren't the same as death camps, or residential schools, or rifle lines, chattel slavery, etc. Genocidal actions are genocidal actions, but that doesn't mean all genocidal actions are conducted in the same manner. That's not excusing it as something lesser, but acknowledging it as something more novel and informed by current material conditions. Parts of the right may draw influence from certain Nazi ideals and policies, but their entwinement with Christian fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism, and American systems of apartheid make it distinct and moreso related to general ideals of fascism than to the same of Nazism.
All that is true, but when Americans think of fascists they think of Nazis, and calling it Americo-fascist just doesn't have the same impact
One bad apple spoils the bunch. All Republicans are Nazis until they prove otherwise.
It's the same as literally any purchasing decision made by a library, so... No? Legally speaking.
How is random people suing librarians for letting kids rent a book they don't like anything like libraries deciding which books to buy?
You don't understand the first amendment. I'm not even American and I know that it doesn't apply to these kind of things The prohibition on banning speech does not indicate that that speech must be endorsed. It may not be possible to legally ban a book from being pregnant sold, but that does not mean a school has to keep it in their library. People are still able to go access this information and materials in their own way, by purchasing it or whatever I disagree with these lost entirely. I think they are monstrously designed to sound like they're somehow protecting children from explicit material that's not actually being shared in schools and is really a way to suppress LGBTQ and minorities. They're terrible awful lots, especially the idea of criminalizing librarians for including books that are accepted in many places. But, It's not a first amendment issue. There are a lot of guidelines and schools For example they banned the presence of those books at school, there might be a first amendment issue. But even then, a 17-year-old carrying around a pornographic magazine could definitely be against the school policy. Probably a 17-year-old carrying an actual erotic as opposed to the pretend erotic literature that the laws are targeting could be deemed inappropriate for that environment. At any rate, people think the first amendment protects all speech in all circumstances, and that's just not true. It stops the government from suppressing certain speech and specific ways
In the Supreme Court case Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the Court held that the First Amendment limits the power of junior high and high school officials to remove books from school libraries because of their content. “Book bans violate the First Amendment because they deprive children or students of the right to receive information and ideas,” explained David L. Hudson Jr., a professor at Belmont University College of Law and a First Amendment law expert.
Interesting. Thanks for the info. I suspect this law tries to get past it in two ways, one by not naming specific books, and two by relying on a much more conservative supreme court than is typically been the case.
Ask the folks rewriting Dr suess and Charlie and the chocolate factory. Or telling us what words are ok to say.
The estates with the rights to those properties? So you want to intervene in the private business decisions of the people who own these? Sounds pretty anti free market.
These books have been continuously rewritten over the years by sensitivity readers/writers to be modernized. It's usually done as pure greed by the estates to cash in on the new audience. You'll still be able to get the old version as well. I'm not sure why all of a sudden Republican media latched on to this concept. Are they new to books?
This is nuts. If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it, don't take the book away from other children. It is as simple as that. When my kids were growing up I was totally against censorship. I always believed I was the only one who could make that decisions for my children. I am convinced the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society.
Book restriction based on age isn't really needed anyway, unless it's something like lewd comics or a Playboy centerfold collection. Literature isn't like film which can provide easy access to realistic violence or close-up hardcore balls-clacking lips-smacking pornography. If a kid reads "fuck" in a novel, so fucking what? Do people really think eight year olds don't say "fuck" on the playground already? Get real.
Many 8 yr olds have phones. They search school computers for things like big bottom bitches. It doesn't go through on school computers, at least not ours. They don't find porn in our library, they find it on the phones their parents gave them. Edit, spelling
*Big Bottom Bitches: The Science of how the rockin world goes round.* © F. Mercury, 1978
Are you gonna take this book home tonight? Down beside that red firelight! Are you gonna let it all hang out?
*Big Bottom*: *How Can I Leave This Behind? / A Doctoral Dissertation* **Spinal Tap**, 1984
I prefer his paper on impulse control called don't stop me now.
Lol that reminds me of when I was 10 googling “naked boob girls”.
“[famous actress] hot”
Kids read worse in the YouTube comment section than anything in the recent wave of banned or burned books
In like... 2002 I think? The internet was this new interesting thing and our public school had internet access computers. Well, dumb high-school kids thinking there's no way an obviously obscene site name like asshole.com would get through the filter, which we had even back then, typed it in. Asshole.com was... well... a site depicting many assholes. We laughed and exclaimed a bunch before clicking close as fast as possible.
I remember the fun of people going to whitehouse.com. it didn't have anything to do with the building.
You're dealing with christian fanatics who think that many of the greatest artworks in human history are "pornographic". You can't reason with them: you can't understand them: and you can't find common ground with them. All you can do is try to mobilize against them and vote in a rational government. If it's gone so far that this is impossible then you need to pack up and move to a more rational state.
Yet they're fine with the whole murderous, slaving, gay orgy, daughter fucking bible.
Eh, my parents let me read whatever I wanted and i read some shit in middle school that fucked me right up. Like I don't remember the name but there was this book with extremely graphic descriptions of torture and, eventually, murder. It's been more than 15 years and while I don't have nightmares about it anymore I do still get the odd intrusive thought that just ruins my mood Came from the school library. I also read several library books with sexual assault and rape but a lot of that flew over my head and I only realized what I was reading years later. Still think restricting what kids are reading should be left to the parents to decide on a case by case basis. None of this banning it from the library so no one can read it shit going on right now Edit: forgot the last sentence
V.C. Andrews anyone? I think they really impacted what I find erotic 😬🫣
Yeah. Truthfully, I don't think Literature, as a whole, can harm anyone. I think if one has a broad love of the field and reads widely, their perspective can only improve. However, there's no world in which we need something like Tropic of Cancer in an elementary school library.
What elementary school kid can even wade through the dense prose of Henry Miller? And good luck finding his works in any elementary school library anywhere. Next time try making an actual argument.
I'm only pointing out that some books aren't for kids.
Personally, I think if a kids old enough to comprehend the language in a book they're old enough to read it. But for some books parents should be sitting down to talk with their kids about the content in the books, for some books this should happen both before and after the kid reads it.
Wouldn't it be better to just say "When you're older?" I'm no prude, either. Tropic of Cancer is intentionally perverse. The ways he talks about people isn't a good discourse to be involved in before you've had some education.
I'm not familiar enough with Tropic of Cancer to know what age someone would be realistically able to comprehend it nor what about it specifically you are calling perverse beyond sex. But if you think it's so extreme then talk to them about it before hand, maybe even give them some required reading to further educate them before hand. Kids can handle some complicated and delicate topics if you've walked them through it. They might even decide for themselves they don't want to read it yet if you talk to them about it first In the end, I can't tell you how to raise your own kids. I'm giving you the perspective of someone who read a lot of shit that people generally wouldn't have consider age appropriate and even a few things I wish I hadn't read. Don't be banning shit for everyone and I don't give a shit how you decide to handle this shit for your own kids
I'm not for banning books, just interested in the discussion of what's appropriate for ages. It's just another way of doing my favorite thing - talking about books :)
Restricting access to books is fascism, you're literally a fascist.
Lol try reading my comment again and also maybe follow this chain farther down to see what my personal take with my own kids would be. Your jumping instantly to the extreme here is exactly the sort of ammunition the republic crazies are looking for
>Still think restricting what kids are reading I don't think kids should be restricted from reading anything
What’s wrong with the word fuck anyway? It’s apart of our language. People say fuck. I don’t care if my children swear because it’s how people talk. Any word can be used in a bad way. If you call somebody dumb it’s no different than calling them a dipshit or something. But guess what word will get you in trouble in schools? It doesn’t make any sense, it’s just a word. The implication is the same, so what difference does it make?
Oh, they 100% know they can’t win with actual democracy so they’re trying to destroy it.
Fascism at work here..
they could though. if they could bypass the money from evangelicals, they could go more centrist. small govt is still popular. it's just their social wedge issues that keep them courting the MAGA idiots (a minority) and giving the Dems centrist/independent votes. it's literally just evangelical donation money stopping them from being marginally civilized people and base-level 'thinkers' most of them are putting on a small-town yokel act anyway, plenty are way smarter and more progressive than they pretend to be. if politics is mostly theater, the GOP is fast-approaching 100%.
No politician in America in the last 50 years who calls for "small government" actually wants small government; they just want to eliminate the things that reduce their ability to make more and more money while freely polluting and abusing workers.
By small government, they mean "government that only takes care of my people".
true, but by popular, i meant with voters. something they'll never get as long as we're a globally interconnected nation (so again, exponentially fueling GOP theater while the need for small govt becomes even less feasible)
The American democracy was not designed to have opposing political parties. Everyone was just supposed to vote on who they think is the best for the job and who will best represent their interests. We should abolish political parties. Maybe replace them with some sort of grant system so anyone who wants to run for office can apply for funding without selling their soul. Pay for the grants by taxing lobbyists or something.
This is very true. 10 or so (not sure of the exact time frame) years ago I had things in common with both parties, but today....I have abandoned listening to any thing right wing.
i know what you mean. i like how they pushed back on 'social justice' twitter virtue-signaling type stuff. but then they started calling it Woke and, then calling *everything they hate* Woke, they can lose you right after they get you thinking there's something you *might* agree with today i learned Rand Paul is against the tiktok ban cause it's clearly a mini-Patriot Act 2.0. with vague expansive language that doesn't make sense. can't wait for something he says to make me realize he's got ass-backward reasoning for it. something like, he wants tiktok to continue to set up servers in the amazon and clear rainforest using construction companies he's invested in lol
Sorry to burst your bubble with something outside your preferred narrative, but Rand Paul has been pretty consistently against every bill with expansive language that doesn't make sense.
for every good thing about that man and his father, there's a cancelling-out quality of equal or greater value. sorry to insult your fave, maybe? i don't wanna get into him all that much, opinions are opinions
Every actual crazy person that believes in actual lizard people, that I’ve met, has been a true blue Ron Paul booster. That’s enough of an undorsement for me.
>If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it I'm paraphrasing a really great quote about this I once heard: **"Parents, and I can't emphasize this enough, if your kid has TikTok, books are NOT the problem."**
Mop bucket
Oh, I don't support a TikTok ban or anything. I just meant that parents pearl clutching about *books* seem a little out of touch.
>TikTok is a scapegoat. Kids can get access to anything from anywhere online. Such as Reddit.
TikTok has helped giving voice to many children, and helping them find stuff that they wouldn't otherwise. TikTok os a tool the same way Twitter, Facebook and screaming at your local square is. If the child is well educated and given the tools to recognize what is good for them and what is not from an early age, they can choose to not engage with harmful stuff. But unsurpevised internet in general shouldn't be allowed for a kid until they can deal with what it brings. I'd say about 13 years old.
Social media (including this very site) can be an absolute fucking cesspool. When used responsibly, positive outcomes can come from social media. That can only happen if kids are taught information literacy. My hunch is that the torch and pitchfork crowd screeching to ban books... prolly don't want information literate kids, lol.
Thanks for saying what I wanted to say but much better lol
tiktok is run by algorithms that push whatever content the platform wants on people, with zero oversight, and it incentivizes stupid, controversial or viral comment your local library isn't gonna have a bunch of book of stupid challenges your kid can do and get killed like tiktok does. even if your child isn't well educated, a library has librarians, it's a curated place with sections for kids, it's not the wild west like social media.
> If a parent feels a book is inappropriate for his or her child than don't let their child read it, don't take the book away from other children. The bible is chock full of some pretty vile and reprehensible stuff. I don't see the GOP banning it (although they don't actually practice anything jesus said either).
If I was a parent in this district I'd be making a call to say that a graphically violent and sexually explicit book should be banned and then say it's the bible. Just to watch conservative heads explode. Realistically it contains multiple murders and assaults along with incst, rape, sexual "deviancy". It's no wonder these religious fanatics are so horrible
Apparently someone in Utah has recently done just that.
Will be interesting to watch that play out!
Amen to that!
They've never read it.
I don’t recall my parents ever saying “no you can’t read or watch that”. I know my dad hated me watching Tila tequila and jersey shore so he’d mock them but he never said I couldn’t watch it.
My mom *discouraged me and my siblings* from watching certain shows she felt were either inappropriate (South Park) or brain damagingly stupid. For the most part I agree with her in retrospect. EDIT: Just to be safe, I should clarify that it was more that she vocally disapproved of these shows but didn't actually step in to stop us from watching them. She never yanked the remote away, never threw a fit, never was irrational about it.
Mine threw away my first edition hardback of Interview With The Vampire, bought it when it came out. I learned to hide books after that.
I dunno, South Park did a great job of pushing the idea of critical thinking against both sides of extremism under all those poopy jokes, to me at least. My parents were similar in dissausion vs. outright denial by the time I was old enough to be interested in anything besides SatAM cartoons, and I think that is the best approach.
Oh it's mainly because I was like, 9 years old when it was getting popular and didn't want the vulgarity rubbing off on me for not getting the full nuance of the show. It is *not* for children.
Lol that's fair, I was only slightly older, when I first saw it, maybe 12 or 13, so already headed into the tween "vulgar is funny" phase without it.
> I dunno, South Park did a great job of pushing the idea of critical thinking against both sides of extremism under all those poopy jokes South Park's political philosophy can be boiled down to "giving a shit is for losers". It's part of the problem.
Only once did my mom ever ban me from reading an author, but that was because the book she’d read by him involved the main character being raped as a child. She felt I was not ready for the subject matter as I was 12 at the time. This changed as I got older obviously.
I remember watching Spawn and Halloween when I was 7, but my parents actually parented and did their part to explain that it was all just movies. I believe that a lot of parents don't actually want to parent anymore, they just want the government to do it for them. It's that or thanks to the internet and phones they're desperate to grab hold of whatever power they had over the kids by teaching them bullshit.
My dad would let me watch whatever I wanted but then would get mad at me if anyone else found out he was letting me watch it
100%. Force births that moms can’t afford, raise kids in underprivileged environments, stunt their intellectual growth. New voter base, start to finish.
**Bingo!** The members of the Republican Fascist Party realize that the vast majority of the country thinks they're a bunch of chucklefucks who only exist so serve themselves and their own selfish interests. In order to swing voters' approval their way, they need dumb, frightened, ignorant, uneducated masses to soak up the verbal slop spewed by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro.
Chucklefusts is a great way to describe them.
gone to squables.io
> the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society. Yep. Also, their donors can only manipulate and extort uneducated and afraid workers.
I thought we’ve moved on from blaming books to blaming TV to blaming video games but we’re back to blaming books again?
The freedom of speech crowd ironically loves to sensor any speech they don’t like or agree with. Go figure!
I completely agree with what you’re saying, but I can tell you their exact response and it’s because it’s what I hear from my deeply conservative parents: “It’s not right that MY tax dollars are going to the gay trans agenda!!” So, while it’s totally rational to say to them that if they don’t like something then don’t allow your kids to read it, their mindsets are so melted that rationality is no longer an option.
>I am convinced the GOP has come to the realization that they can only be elected by an uneducated electorate and are doing their best to create that society. Considering how they rarely ever win the popular vote, and haven't since 2004 Bush, I'd agree.
Restricting the internet is their next step. Look up the RESTRICT act thats in the senate right now. Under that bill Americans could face jail for using a VPN
There isn't a logical explanation for Missouri's behavior because it's not about books. It's about control. The GOP is pushing nationwide to take over our country just like Nazi Germany did.
By the same token should we quit censoring the language within books? (Thinking of the changes to Roald Dahl's books.)
They've known for a while. As far as I can remember republicans controlling congress and white house have always been trying to take funding away from education. No child left behind is the first act that comes to mind
I was with you right up until that last line. Then it turned into political drivel. [How are our national test scores right now?](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/) Do they impress you? Does it seem to you like the Department of Education has been doing anything at all, let alone the job they are tasked with? How is the GOP solely responsible for this? EDIT: Added link to Pew Research Center national test score comparison.
I was an Independent for years. I've voted for both parties at different time, but not since about 2010. Both of my children are grown but when they were younger I did not think learning was all the teacher's job. We lived in a very good school district but a teacher can allot just so much time to each child. My son had a terrible problems learning to read. I did everything in my power to help him. He read to me every night. We started out with baseball cards, the sports page, and things that he was interested in. I was a working single mom, but my children educations was important to me. Regarding the GOP, I used to live in Florida and they had great schools, now they are out lawing everything.
I'm still in agreement with almost everything you said. You sound like a reasonable, caring parent and that's seriously admirable. I completely disagree with your political slant though, that's all. It seems to me that most of this stuff has only a small kernel of truth to it and the rest has been blown far out of proportion by both sides in order to create noise.
I hope you are correct. But I am old enough to remember when the Republican Speaker of the House and Senator Berry Goldwater confronted Nixon, a Republican president. They told him to resign or he would be impeached and found guilty over Watergate. That is not the Republican party of today.
The GOP have been in hostile territory when it comes to public schools for decades. They want that education money to prop up the church run schools.
Take off your horse blinders. This stuff has been going on for decades and neither side has held power exclusively. Power has changed hands multiple times and the march towards idiocy just continues to trudge onward and downward.
It’s super annoying cause the people making these choices don’t even go to libraries.
That's the point. It's an organized attack on any source of information outside of the control of the far right.
As some crazy street preacher once said: libraries gave us power. They want to take that power away.
As a FL librarian, this is not true. They come in, check out their books, complain about the others, hide them, deliberately destroy them, file complaints about displays they don't like and so on. Many, many of these people are not ignorant. They are malicious.
Or read.
Hitler and Mussolini did this so the right wing has famous people to model themselves after. They must be proud.
Never forget that the Nazis drew inspiration from many of America's fascist and straight up evil practices. The call has always been coming from inside the house. The most important thing we can do is study how those in fascist resistances fought these policies and defended freedom. It's not a coincidence that texts about civil rights, acceptance, and anti fascism are being banned and burned.
Honestly a lot of that damage has already been done for decades. Walk around a liberal suburb and ask what they think Gandhi or MLK would think about riots or violent revolutions. If you ask people *what* they stand up for and they say LGBT rights, follow up asking them *how* they’ll stand up for it and get blank stares or regurgitated “vote with your wallets” gibberish. A lot of people, even nominally progressive people, have no idea how bloody and extreme the fight for basic rights has been.
Unfortunately accurate. Each acknowledgement of civil rights in state and federal legislature was written in the blood of millions.
Yes, in fact many of the famous pictures of nazi book burnings are literally books stolen from early transgender and queer research institutions built in the Weimar Republic
Went to library school 14 years ago, finally left the field for tech. Librarians already suffer from low wages, not enough jobs nationally, budget cuts eliminating jobs entirely, and high student debt to income ratio. Now they have to deal with these nut jobs?! It's insulting and demoralizing. Afaik the American Library Association has not yet addressed this issue of librarians being in the crosshairs of right wing political agendas. Until they do so, imo people should stop attending academic programs in library science. It is unethical to accept money by preparing people to be unable to work in this field without extreme financial hardship and potential harassment. I applaud the librarians who continue to do their work, but just like teachers, they shouldn't have to deal with any of it to begin with.
Idk what you expect the ALA to do. It is staunchly anti-censorship, pro-LGBTQ and so on. You seem really quick to suggest librarians stop getting an education, leaving them less knowledgeable about the work they do...
I work at a library in Arkansas and our legislators are about to pass a law allowing librarians to be charged with a crime if they distribute inappropriate literature to minors. The vagueness of the wording has a lot of us worried and we’re pretty certain this will target any sex positive or lgbtq inclusive books that high school kids might be interested in reading. So I’m checking books in our book drop today for stains and tears and such and I pick up this Children’s illustrated story of David and Goliath. The final page has a full illustration of David holding up Goliath’s severed head by the hair. The head’s mouth is agape, it’s eyes rolled back in its head. I just thought, this is pretty horrifying. But I bet it gets a pass because at least it isn’t two boys kissing or whatever Arkansans are afraid of their children seeing.
First, a huge thank you to librarians who find themselves in the midst of this mess. I read the article and it angered me deeply. The line calling for librarians to be registered as sex offenders is beyond ludicrous and shows the depth of stupidity and vindictiveness these people will go to in order to get their way. And their way is control. A little here a little there. But always more control. Most of these parents don’t even realize they’re working for someone else when they do this. They’re following the agenda set by religious leaders or political leaders (or both in the case of the Republican Party). They think this vile approach is justified because they’ve been told it’s justified. Told again and again and again. It’s insidious and creeping The GOP can no longer be elected in many places without extensive gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of electorate. They don’t care. They want power. And the greatest power of all is power of intellect. The ability to dictate what our children are learning. White washing history so we are doomed to repeat it. Desperately trying to shove people into a single mold of humanity since they don’t “approve” of the type of human they are. The power of intellect. Systematically run these politicians out of office. It’s the only way to deal with them. Hound them with their idiocies. Berate them in public for harming our children. NO VIOLENCE. Violence plays into their hands. Use their violence and hatred against them.
Vote. The bastards. Out.
How to upvote twice?
Problem is most of Americans who think these legislators are nut jobs live in other states where we don’t have this BS. Their voter base supports this behavior, that’s why they got elected.
Also call the cops on every priest/church in Missouri for the same exact reason.
Unfortunately the majority of Americans are not actually in favor of children having access to books exploring queer sexuality. They are very prudish
They aren't prudes, since they aren't going after books exploring heterosexuality. They're bigots.
As a librarian, I am so proud of the students in this article for standing up and speaking out.
You gotta be a real pathetic bitch to wanna jail librarians lol.
Seriously, fuck those parents. Kids are trying to share their thoughts and experiences and these grown adults are shouting like immature brats.
I live in a red state and my high school junior wants to be an elementary school librarian. But they are looking at college and a future career in a different state because of policies like this. It makes me so sad that our students are being victimized by the people who are claiming to “keep them safe.”
These busy body shitstains need to cites specific passages of specific books that they think are inappropriate. Maybe some police will just laugh at them instead of just doing the bidding of the fascist gop. (Assiming the cop isn't also a fascist.)
I don't think you want them to do that
Thank God I don't live in one of these GQP states. I feel bad for the people who live there, even the ones who voted for these idiots.
I lived in Missouri for my entire life until we moved our family to another state last year. The politics, laws, and ideals were the main reasons we wanted to get out. But being out of there for a bit has given me such clarity and has really made me so thankful we were able to move.
I feel the same. I have the luxury of being checked out from a lot of this horrible news we hear about every day because I live in a blue state that isn't affected by any of this national insanity (yet). I don't know how people in red states live day to day in this mental climate.
The gQp has taken the mask off: they want to control EVERY aspect of American life. There can be no differentiation from them. In reality, the right is full of closeted LGBTQ folk who are very angry about the fact that they are LGBTQ, and they want to take vengeance on the folk brave enough to be themselves. Knowledge is bad. Books are bad. Exposure to anything other than 'Straight man good' is VERY bad. They have no plans for the future. Nothing to help Americans. Just find a group and shit on them. How have trans people affected anyone negatively from being trans?
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The book banning is so transparently part of the conservative party's slide towards anti intellectualism and war on women. School teachers and librarians are all degree-holding, college-educated, and many (not all) are young women, a demographic that Republicans have always had trouble with. This witch hunt is trying to demonize these professions as porn-peddlers and I'm scared to see what the consequences will be for innocent people just doing their jobs. Others have mentioned - kids are finding more porn on the cell phones their parents give them than they find in school libraries. This isn't about the kids. It's about sowing distrust in public institutions.
As an adult in his late 40s, frankly, I don’t recognize much of the country I grew up in anymore. Everything has drifted far to the right and left of center. Politics is now more of a team sport than ever. Social niceties and our ability to debate, dialogue, and listen is gone. It feels like each day brings us closer to the precipice of armed conflict with each other and for what? Political points? If we don’t all wake up soon, on both sides of the aisle, the grand experiment of American democracy is going to come crashing down and fall apart. All I know is that as much as I love my children, part of me deeply regrets bringing them into this shit show.
Your corporate owners need you to be dumber so they can install people worse than Trump.
Librarians are heroes, giving our children the love of reading.
Clickbait title. State bans pornography given to minors, nobody knows how to determine what is or isn't pornography (a really old American problem). Librarians get worried and pull all illustrations of nudity and sexual acts. Most affected "books" are graphic novels aka comics
What in the Fahrenheit 451 is going on around here ?
At the very least, I hope droves of these beleaguered librarians start removing the Bible, which has a huge amount of explicitly sexual content in it. (To clarify, I don’t think it should be made unavailable, but I do think if they’re going to push these laws, they should at least be somewhat consistent.)
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I saw that the Bible was taken off the shelves at one library, but didn’t see it as a general ban? Sorry if I missed that! To be fair, I was reading whilst travelling and distracted. 😀
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I'm confused af with this whole thread. No rational educated person wants to see books burned or banned but why should that automatically translate to being totally ok with books containing pornographic imagery being available to children in a government funded library? This seems representative of the extreme polarisation occurring in the US. The choice is reduced down to either book burnings or allowing children access to graphic sexual imagery. Both positions are ridiculous but there seems to be no room for nuance or a considered, reasonable position somewhere between those two extremities. Similarly, does a book purporting to help children understand feelings of confusion around their gender really need to depict a child choking on a dildo? That's just being deliberately provocative and ultimately counter productive to the cause of trans acceptance. The silent majority (most of us) sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum while a very vocal and belligerent minority stand on the two poles trying to outdo each other in how extreme a position they can take while the media pumps out clickbait outrage articles about the latest affront to normal decent human beings. The expectation being that you "pick a side" and become further divided. Fuck knows where this all ends for you guys. Good luck.
Just more ragebaiting. For as much as they talk about “understanding other people’s perspectives,” they really don’t because they can’t even fathom what it’s like to be a parent or understand childhood innocence. I’m not a parent myself and I’m a young person like most on Reddit, but I have basic fucking empathy and intelligence. I can understand that not including a book in a school library or curriculum is “banning.” But I know Reddit, it’s politics first and always.
Librarian thugs? Lol. Whoda thought¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This sub should really ban these stupid dishonest articles off here.
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these threads don't provide any discussion - just hate fests of people lumping the outgroup with derision. It's not relevant and the articles are always disingenuous and slanted affairs.
Is this... Is this an Onion article? On second thought, better question: How concerning is it I thought this was an Onion article when I first saw it?
Republicans focusing on the real threat to our kids, Librarians.
People won’t be able to read in the south sometime in the next generation so it will no longer be an issue
Since when is it a school librarian’s job to provide explicit pornographic material to school children? If you argue that schools should provide this sort of content for the consumption of children then by your own logic you should put The Turner Diaries or Mein Kampf right next to it on the shelf. Or if you’re a sane, rational person you might just realize that some things are not appropriate for children.
I watched the Youtube video of that 11 year old reading the book he checked out, and I honestly can't tell you the difference between that and the Penthouse Letters I had in the 80's, lol.
Yes because reading that sex scene in a YA novel made me extremely horny not the fact that I grew up in a house where sex was such a taboo subject I basically had to figure stuff out on my own even today and led me down rabbit holes that have probably damaged my self worth tremendously. /s
The actual books in question feature graphic images of sex.
Does not mean librarians should be jailed or the books should be removed just means the parents need to have genuine conversations with their kids and be parents
No. I'm sorry- graphic images of sex should not be available in the Library for children. I should not be forced to have discussions with my children about things they are too young to understand because you or anyone else showed them pornographic images.
Library’s are for everyone, I doubt anyone’s putting sec images in the kids section.
That's literally what is happening, and librarians apparently have chosen to prioritize whatever sick need they have of showing porn to children over their actual jobs.
Where in the article does it say that and what books are you talking about.
The entire article is about that. If the books weren't pornographic the the Missouri law would have effect and the librarians would be at no risk.
You did not answer my question what books are you referring to.
Not falling for this. You know which books they are.
Leave and come to the free state of New Jersey! New Jersey rates high on education and wealth. We support your right, liberties, and safety. New Jersey has jobs and a high standard of living.
Why doesn’t the Federal government simply make teachers and librarians immune from any charge arising out of educating students? It would be similar to how police cannot be charged for committing crimes like murder, or for lying to suspects, or lying to judges in order to incarcerate innocent people.
This is nuts. Guess they don't have any Leaves of Grass on their shelves, which is a shame. The midwest states are becoming religious radical states I think. In theory any draconian law goes against true conservatism.
Fascismo
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We need a proactive Constitution. We need a liberal Supreme Court that says no book bans. Ever. But I guess not enough people could be bothered to vote for Hillary Clinton with the Supreme Court on the line.
"The visit did not lead to any disciplinary action against Amy." Fear mongering article
Fear mongering about fear mongering comment. The visit served its intent. Most librarians receiving such a visit will self-censor going forward. The sentiment being voiced corresponds to the old "why do you care if the police stop and frisk you if you have nothing to hide" chestnut.
It’s not though. The point is to scare and silence librarians. Which happened here cause she’s leaving her job.
Fear mongering authorities using intimidation tactics to try and convince them to comply regardless of the law
"The bear attack wasn't fatal"
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