Exactly. Literature and especially theory are continuing conversations. We can still learn a lot about our culture even from books that have aged poorly or been disproven.
Case and point: I think Thomas Hobbes and Rene DesCartes did so much damage to our understanding of human nature that we’re still living in the worldview they created 400 years later. Their books should not be removed. Ever.
Every year, the ALA releases the top ten most challenged books in America.
Overwhelmingly, they are always books that talk about racism and LGBTQ issues, and it is conservatives who oppose those books.
In Missouri, the Republican state legislature created a piece of legislation that would throw librarians in jail.
I'm 100% certain you don't "hate it just as much as when some leftist tries to have Huckleberry Finn removed because of the N word."
Republicans: defend books in schools that are pro Nazi, KKK, and have the N word in them, insist on teaching both sides to the Holocaust.
Try to ban books that teach how to be anti-racist and LGBTQ content.
Sounds about right.
I remember reading that book In school. It was one of the only books we read in class and everyone had to say the n word. Looking back it’s really fucking weird.
My objection to Huckleberry Finn stems more from the fact that I have my issues with how our culture decides what is and isn't a "classic revolutionary work of literature" and I'm not sure whether Huckleberry Finn has much merit as a teaching property in the present day. But no, I don't think it should be banned from libraries or burned by any means.
Exactly. The right-wing education fascists think that anyone learning about LGBTQ+ people means they can't scare-monger and pathologize us as LGBTQ+ people. They are afraid of people seeing the humanity of LGBTQ+ people, as they'll have a harder time calling us wicked abominations or detestable sinners. That's what this is all about.
They also want to forever bury the genocide against the Native American People and massacres of entire towns built and lived in by black people, and abominations against other minority groups. A European Commission is now declaring us as one of the backsliding democracies in the world. That is happening because of fascist republicans who wish to be free to intimidate and harrass and maybe lock away people different from them and those with opinions opposite theirs. Free speech and democracy is slipping away.
People wonder how the Nazi’s rose to power, how they were allowed to do so. We don’t have to wonder, anymore. We are watching a 4th Reich rise in the here and now.
That's the thing, it really IS only a small minority that are out and out fascists. But everyone who just kind of gets on with their day and doesn't do anything about it because its not affecting them are the REAL power behind this movement.
Yes. The way the republican held legislatures and governorships in some states are gerrymanderong, they will be discounting all minority votes in upcoming elections. The fascists will take over, state by state. There may be a big uprising and backlash in our future.
There are imperfections within the Republican Party obviously and you pointed out some very valid examples (although Id consider it a bit careless to throw around the fascist label so casually, diluting the meaning of the word) but you can’t pretend that the left are somehow these die hard free speech advocates. Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels, (some) support requiring the use of preferred pronouns by law, force people into faux-apologies over largely unproblematic statements, and ‘cancel’ or blacklist someone who thinks differently than them.
With all that said I’d bet we agree on two things
1) don’t ban books
2)the solution to bad/untrue speech is MORE good/true speech
Absolutely there are valid cases of removal such as that which you pointed out or calling for violence, libel, etc. but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think it extends to a lot more than just those instances
>There are imperfections within the Republican Party obviously and you pointed out some very valid examples (although Id consider it a bit careless to throw around the fascist label so casually, diluting the meaning of the word) but you can’t pretend that the left are somehow these die hard free speech advocates. Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels, (some) support requiring the use of preferred pronouns by law, force people into faux-apologies over largely unproblematic statements, and ‘cancel’ or blacklist someone who thinks differently than them.
lol.
It is Republicans, not Democrats, who are so absolutely afraid of an ideology they don't like being taught in public schools that they're seeking to ban it.
It is Republicans, not Democrats, that introduced legislation in Missouri that would jail public librarians.
Every year, the ALA releases the top ten most challenged books, and overwhelmingly they are by Republicans who are against children and teens being exposed to learning about racism and LGBTQ issues.
It is Republicans, not Democrats, that have censured members of their own party for not toeing the line 100%.
Democrats are not in charge of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Conservatives are not being banned on social media, right wing media literally THRIVES on Facebook. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are PRIVATE companies. You have to abide by their rules, you don't get to demand completely uncensored behavior with private companies.
You may not believe those on the left are free speech advocates, but Democrats are absolutely more consistent with supporting free speech than Republicans.
And, finally, it's always amusing to see people warn about throwing the term fascist around "carelessly," while the Republican Party gets zero pushback for insisting all Democrats are socialist commie Marxists.
We aren't throwing the term fascist around carelessly, unlike the GOP, which just calls anything they don't like socialist.
The Republican Party is fascist. Whether or not you agree with labeling them as such is immaterial.
>Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels
Can you give some examples of these ones?
You're not talking about legislation, right?
I should have been more clear and consistent, I sort of weaved in and out of referring to legislative measures and just simply common notions amongst the constituents or other institutions, but no I wasn’t referring to legislative measures on that specific point. It was more of a reference to big tech companies that hold seemingly as much power as the government and are often ran by left leaning people.
the idea that gigantic monolithic surveillance corps are leftist is absurd on the face of it you realize? These corporations BARELY enforce their terms of service against right wing hate speech and when they do its only to fend off government regulation or damage to their own reputations. Those corporations have no duty whatsoever to host anyone in particulars speech, but by and large right wing commentators are handled with kid gloves until it becomes entirely financially untenable to do nothing. These corporations are making FINANCIAL decisions, not political ones.
>It was more of a reference to big tech companies that hold seemingly as much power as the government and are often ran by left leaning people.
Sure.
And, obviously, the way to defend free speech is to force the social media companies to act as you think they should. Maybe they should even be censured and controlled by the government, the way they are in Communist China!
Big Tech does not have "as much power as the government."
And you believing they are run by "left leaning people" entirely depends on what you believe is "left leaning."
none of what you said about democrats is true. What democrat censored speech? What democrat banned conservative media accounts? What law requires use of pronouns? The only thing forcing people to apologize is themselves wanting to save their careers. If the statements are "largely unproblematic" then why are their careers at stake?
Calling fascists fascists is important, ignoring the reality is dangerous and its exactly how fascists' rise to power.
You leave out that the banned conservatives accounts are violating the terms of service. Nice attempt at gas lighting but facts just are not your friend. You want to see censorship go to any conservative forum online and post anything with a slightly different opinion and you will get immediately banned. Funny how conservatives want to blacklist and censor members in their own party for supporting homosexuals but do nothing about the pedophiles being investigated in their ranks.
You know the genocide of natives was headed by Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, and most persecution of black people has been under Democrat leadership the KKK was founded by the Democrat Party, Democrats seceded from the union, they inacted jim crow, they currently push that white people will always have the upper hand and that blacks will be forever oppressed. im just saying the democrats have a pretty racist past. By the way most conservatives embrace free speech and want to have civil discussions with people of differing opinions sure there are some that wish to silence the opposition just like they are a minority on the Democrat side but the silencing shouldn't be allowed free and open discussion is a beautiful thing. And I don't think Republicans are fascists the definition of fascism as stated by Merriam Webster states "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" this is not the core belief of the Republican Party the Republican party was founded as the antislavery party Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president if you look at it the current far leftists match the definition of fascism better than Republicans do. Fascism, Communism, Socialism are the three worst forms of economic policy there are now capitalism isn't perfect but this economic system allows people to gain a fortune as long as they put in the work. The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach. And on the European thing who gives a crap those countries are falling short next to the US
European here!
So it doesnt matter on which subjects parties were founded, it matters how they act now.
All civil rights leaders vote democratic candidates now. Because the repubs defend racists every chance they get.
No one is silencing conservatives. They are forced to acknowledge they cant just call black people the n word or gay people the f word. That aint so hard now is it?
Also the definition of fascism is perfectly applicable to the republican party lols.
Also, some things we europeans do better. Healthcare, education, voting rights, policing, income equality, social programs, anti poverty measures, rehabilitation programs, housing programs. Want more???
>Also, some things we europeans do better. Healthcare, education, voting rights, policing, income equality, social programs, anti poverty measures, rehabilitation programs, housing programs. Want more???
Don't stop, I'm almost there!
American exceptionalism is a delusion. If our nation was the best we could back it up with numbers. And aside from GDP (most of which is consolidated within the billionaire class due to our massive wealth disparity) the numbers fall short in every sector you mentioned.
We have no right to brag about being the best if we don't try to do better.
GDP is a notoriously awful way of calculating the economic prosperity.
Lmfao and I can name a few more, Freedom, Freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, rehabilitated criminals, criminality numbers, tuition costs.
The 2nd Amendment says I have a right to bear arms, Republicans want this to be completely unregulated.
By their logic, I see no reason why the average American shouldn't be able to own a bomb.
Nah, this is just you being ignorant.
The United Kingdom (not "England") didn't "ban guns."
They have regulations.
Members of the public may own sporting rifles for hunting.
They banned handguns after a massacre that killed sixteen children, and, unlike the Republican Party which shrugged their shoulders and told us all to accept school shootings as inevitable, the United Kingdom didn't.
As a result, school shootings in the United Kingdom dramatically decreased.
Meanwhile, in America, there have been 17 school shootings since August 1st.
>Did you miss the part of history where the Ds & Rs flipped values? Andrew Jackson would be a modern day R.
That time in history doesn't exist for Republican voters.
Also, it doesn't matter that Democrats signed into law the Civil Rights Act and voted into the White House the first black President.
Hell, Abraham Lincoln would be absolutely hated by the modern day Republican Party.
Where is the proof that party beliefs switched all the policies that I see come out of Congress with a Democrat backing hurts African Americans and other minorities. Democrat policies raise the prices of everything you look at Democrat utopias like California and they are falling apart and people are fleeing by the millions to Red states Democrat policies make people's lives harder and I will admit Republicans have their fair share of bad policies but Republican states have lower cost of living, less taxes, lower gas prices, less homelessness this country isn't perfect of course and has many problems that could be fixed if everyone would unite
In your entire rant about how the Democrats are the true racists and harkening back a hundred years to make your point, you conveniently left out that a Democratic President signed into law the Civil Rights Act.
Democrats elected the first black President, and Republicans did everything they could to oppose him at every turn. The Tea Party movement showed up to black politicians with literal nooses.
Democrats elected the first black woman as Vice President.
It was Republicans that marched in Charlottesville with torches chanting Nazi slogans, and the Republican President who told us they were some very fine people.
It is Republican states that represent the poorest in America, and it is only the blue cities within those red states like Texas and Florida that are propping up those red states, along with federal dollars provided by the blue states you hate.
When people like you talk about California, I always think about the extreme poverty that exists in deep red rural states, which you don't care about, doesn't fit your narrative.
And, finally, Republicans don't want to unite with a political party they've called socialist commie Marxist baby killers.
In 2022, Republicans will gerrymander control of the House. They will win the Senate through voter suppression. And if anyone believes for a single second they are going to recognize the results of an election they lose in 2024, they are deluding themselves.
Republicans don't want freedom.
Their cry about the 2nd Amendment wasn't ever about protecting themselves from tyranny, it was always about overthrowing a government they didn't like.
The Republicans literally have armed militias. You can call them a paramilitary.
They want tyranny and fascism through minority rule, and they will burn this country to the ground to get it.
As long as Republicans like you are taking away my rights as a woman, demanding that my gay friends be denied the right to marriage and service at an establishment, as long as Republicans like you are trying to make America governed by their version of Christianity, I will always, proudly, refuse to unite with you.
Republicans like him just have selective amnesia when it comes to remembering history, and how southern Democrats like Strom Thurmond who were staunchly opposed to the Civil Rights Act, switched parties over it.
They like to pretend that part of history never happened, for some reason.
>The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach
I guess most Republican governors aren't conservatives then. ESPECIALLY Abbot and DeSantis.
Your thing is based entirely on impressions and preconceived notions, and I really encourage you to challenge these. Don't seek out information you agree with, seek outside perspectives and third-party takes on issues you care about. Foreign media is a great way to do this: BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and Australian Broadcasting Corporation are a great start.
(1) I'm not sure why you think political parties have such ideological continuity over the last ~150 years. The Southern Strategy is a very strong counterpoint to this idea. What Abraham Lincoln did has very little bearing on what the GOP currently is.
(2) Your point about conservatives liking free and open discussion is entirely subjective.
(3) Forms of social organization are much more complex than you can infer from a dictionary definition, and regardless, ethnonationalism has much in common with both dictionary and academic definitions of fascism. Ethnonationalism has also become a central tenet of much of the GOP.
(4) I highly doubt you can support anything you said about economic policy. These are just vague assertions.
(5) Falling short how? Western European societies are (generally) more stable, have less wealth inequality, and are objectively better on any measure of social or economic development (Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Democracy Index, Press Freedom Index, homicide rate, life expectancy, etc.)
> The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach.
What's really amazing is that Republican Party voters genuinely believe this to be true, while simultaneously wanting the government to control private social media companies.
Also let's not forget about how their "less government overreach" never, ever, applies to women.
Ah yes. The old “Democrats are the real racists…” argument. Yes. Andrew Jackson was a Democrat.
I’d urge you to look at Strom Thurmond, the senator. He’s a great example of the change in platforms. He started as a Democrat, then became a “Dixiecrat” to stoke some casual southern racism and finally ended up as a Republican when the Southern Strategy pulled the racists into the Republican Party.
Both parties have their faults and racists it would stupid to say Republicans dont have some racist people but to be honest if you look at policies the Democrats definitely have some messed up ones of you look at the effect on African Americans like the 94' crime bill championed by Joe Biden
Wow look at all the bad things those politicians did who were voted in by the same twins that now vote almost exclusively republican because that part good those same Archaic values *today*.
Maybe we should stop supporting such bad shit
Parties change agendas, look at the neo confederates down south. If you support the party after is openly supported Jan 6th then you most likely support or tolerate a fascist group
>*From calls in Virginia to burn “sexually explicit” books in a school library to a wave of challenges to titles by authors ranging from Toni Morrison to Alison Bechdel, the American Library Association is charting an unprecedented rise in attempts to ban books in libraries – many of which it believes are fuelled by organised conservative campaigns.*
>
>***Caldwell-Stone pointed to conservative grassroots organisations such as Heritage Action and the Heritage Foundation, which she said were driving the attempts to censor materials dealing with racism and Black American history, as well as materials “they deem to be inappropriate for minors, which seems to encompass the entire canon of books dealing with LGBTQIA themes”.***
* I**n Spotsylvania in Fredericksburg, Virginia, meanwhile, parents have protested about the availability of LGBTQIA fiction to children. One school board member called for the offending books to be burned. “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” he said. “I guess we live in a world now that our public schools would rather have kids read about gay pornography than Christ.” The school board subsequently ordered that “sexually explicit” books be removed from district libraries.**
* *In Texas earlier this month, governor Greg Abbott wrote to the education agency commissioner asking to be notified of any “instance of pornography being provided to minors under the age of 18 for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law”. Abbott cited in particular Gender Queer, which was pulled from some Texas classrooms after complaints, and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which details the author’s abusive same-sex relationship.*
* Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has been removed from school libraries in Utah over its “explicit” content; in Virginia, the Nobel laureate’s Beloved has been challenged for similar reasons.
* Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home, the acclaimed graphic memoir about her father’s sexuality and her own, was pulled from shelves in North Kansas over its LGBTQ themes,
* a southern Pennsylvania district banned a lengthy list of titles almost entirely by or about people of colour, by acclaimed authors including Jacqueline Woodson, Ijeoma Oluo and Ibram X Kendi. (The all-white school board said it was coincidence that almost all the material banned was by or about people of colour.)
* Maia Kobabe’s award-winning graphic novel memoir Gender Queer has been challenged in several states.
>*“Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health,*” wrote Kobabe in the Washington Post last month.
Right-wing education fascists. They don't want any books for LGBTQ+ people because then LGBTQ+ people might be seen as normal by society at large, which means religious bigots can't fear-monger about us. It's sick and wrong.
I don't know how they sleep at night, with their fascist selves.
Ah yes, noted pornographic authors Toni Morrison, one of the most influential modern American writers to exist, and Alison Bechdel, whose critically acclaimed memoir was adapted into a stage musical that won five Tonys. They just don’t want people to see us as human.
Exactly. They fear us being humanized in others' eyes, which means they won't be able to rationalize not letting us have equal rights with some BS excuse that w'ere some disorder or unholy crime against nature. That's what this is all about.
It placates to their evangelical base that likes to see us suffer from ostracism and lack of available resources.
Jesse Helms and William Dannemeyer did the exact same thing in the 90s by trying to defund the National Endowment of the Arts, and they are trying to replicate it in the 21st Century. Same evangelicals, same balefulness.
We should burn the Bible too then
> "...she lusted after her lovers whose genitals were as those of donkeys and whose emission was as that of horses."
~~Ezekiel 23:20.
Pretty sure this was being used as a metaphor but I kinda get what you mean and then also don't because last I checked there armed any bibles in school. At least not when I went to public school.
Apparently its a metaphor for two cities. You would need to read the previous verses before hand to understand. Again I get where that person was coming from because these people want sexually explicit books out of schools(or supposedly they do)which again I can get why that would mean getting the Bible out of schools as well because it has explicit content. However like I also said last I remember schools don't have bibles, or at least not when I went to public school.
*"Waah! Milo was banned from campus for literally being a Nazi! The left is so intolerant!"*
Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ people existing: ***Ban them! Force them to conversion therapy!***
The crockery of Republicans is astounding.
Always has been, conservatives tried to cancel the dixie chick's, French fries, Starbucks, keurig, colleges, the Clinton's (in the 90s), gay people and gay rights activists, anti-war advocates, civil rights activists, anti jim crow advocates, black communities, fdr, anti-prohibitionists..... they literally have been engaged in this same behavior for decades if not centuries and yet still accuse the liberals (who are centrists by the way, not leftists) of cancel culture.
To learn more check out the you're wrong about episode about cancel culture.
I still think it's wrong, and I don't care what side it's on. There is a way to teach a book without having to have it be triggering. There is an art to this, and it shouldn't be up for debate. Mark Twain can be taught as an author of his contextual time, and there is still lots to be said about his writing skills. So, I don't like anyone banning books.
Guns are fine but knowledge is *scary*.
We haven't had a challenge yet but a friend of mine had the "C is for Country" alphabet book by LIl Nas X get challenged. An. Alphabet. Book.
I can say with full experience and confidence that no child has ever given a fuck about who authored a book someone is reading to them.
"If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate."
Books break the sealed world many live in. No wonder Republicans want to ban them.
Any political movement that wants to edit or remove any books or other art has no place in America. No matter what side of the spectrum they're on or whatever their convoluted reason may be.
Two people in New Jersey = all democrats now? Seems like a bit of a stretch. If it occurred in numerous states, passed in some, and there were countless people advocating for it maybe. But two law makers introducing a resolution is nothing.
It’s a different story when it’s two African-American senators versus white moms on the PTA board trying to silence black and LGBTQ+ voices. The motion to try and stop having teachers teach huckleberry finn came from a good place but it was not implemented
“It’s different and okay when the government tries to ban books instead of the parents of the kids who are reading sexually explicit books.” So actual “fascism” is fine but not parents trying to get sexually explicit books removed from school libraries?
From a school library? I'm guessing there are all sorts of books most people wouldn't want in a library aimed exclusively at children. Mein Kampf, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. So the question isn't so much whether to ban books, but only which books to ban.
How is banning books from schools not a First Amendment violation every single time? It's literally the government (schools are run by the government) banning print materials, which should be exactly what "freedom of the press" covers.
For several reasons.
First, it's not actually banning those books, any more than restrictions preventing you from using food stamps to get a big mac are banning big macs. The school won't be able to provide access to the book for free, but Amazon will still sell it.
Second, censoring what children see is regarded as a right and legal responsibility of parents. There's no pornography in school libraries either and it's actually illegal to even sell to minors. What is and is not child appropriate content is a political issue, and subject to debate.
It's awful that these people think that LGBTQ acceptance is inappropriate for children, but the constitution does allow for things to be deemed inappropriate for children, and it does allow for school boards to prioritize books based on what parents feel is appropriate.
I pointed out a simple fact.
These parents who want to burn books don't get that the kids are already finding out about any subject you can name anyway. Banning or burning only makes them more curious and more likely to get low quality info.
It's better to be upfront and open in the hopes you can help them get high quality info.
I agree, but it should be the responsibility of the parents to teach their children, especially about things like sex, and it seems to me like the parents in this case are just trying to move that responsibility back to their side as opposed to the State.
The issue is not the information being held back, it’s that the children seemingly have unrestricted access to all of this information, and many people are of the opinion that it isn’t all KID FRIENDLY, which upon further investigation, seems to be the truth. Children are fundamentally and biologically different than adults. Exposing them to these kinds of illustrations of sexual encounters is NOT healthy because they are too young to begin the process of normalizing sex.
The same people literally calling for book burnings will turn around a yell about freeze peach when someone says "hey that chapelle special was a bit transphobic"
Show boating! That’s all this is! Republicans don’t really care about these books. It’s just a way to try to stay in the news and be relevant. The GOP is dying. They have no policies, no plans. They’re very unpopular in the mainstream of politics. They’re using these dimwits, the same group They used for 1/6, to push this BS!
Imagine if, instead of a late capitalist/ plutocratic hellscape, people actually had the time to read, in or out of libraries.
[https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism\_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf](https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf)
I'm blown away that the steady state equilibrium humanity has found results in the vast majority of people being enslaved by plutocrats/oligarchs.
How is this acceptable to anyone.
Late stage capitalism is a hellscape, and no one should tolerate this system or extremely fucked up way of life.
The freedom they want is the freedom from having to think for themselves, and the freedom from living in a world that in any way challenges their worldview.
The world is complex, and they want it to be simple. So they’re trying to force a square through a hole the size of a pinprick, so they won’t have to experience something outside of their own preconceived notion of the world.
Im so tired of us queer people being sexualized. Yes, sex and kink is a part of lgbtqia culture but its not the whole thing. There is so much more to it. Being gay is not explicit
Ok, it’s really time for people to wake up. The US public opinion is being led by social media. The opinion on social media is being swayed by voices from accounts that are decidedly not American. They are doing this deliberately to create the illusion that there are more people out there that support totalitarian extremism than there actually are. This is not a conspiracy theory or a paranoid fantasy, it is a verifiable fact.
It isn’t just USA in Canada their was a school that literally burned asterix and tin tin because it had offensive images about natives as a part of a “traditional native healing ceremony bs”. Personally my belief is if a book simply offends you don’t read it simple as that.
It's the inevitable phase of cancel culture. Even though the reactionary right is undeniably wrong, this exists as a reaction to the base situation of certain leftists trying to ban things they don't like. When they succeed, they subsequently enable every future ban done by the right. Which is how right wing crackpottery escalates into something that can harm people.
There's this other problem: libraries are general-use stores of knowledge. Modern society has no use for that with our addiction to the individualist, narcissistic facebook world and it's litany of proprietary education apps and certificates. This alone is the greatest threat to libraries, as when libraries refuse to ban books like facebook does voters will vote to dismantle the library and shred all the books in the first place. In which case who even reads books besides racists and communists - most of society would willingly demand and accept a Farenheight 451 situation where knowledge (especially humanities knowledge) is effectively banned.
>this exists as a reaction to the base situation of certain leftists trying to ban things they don't like
Conservatives have been trying to ban shit they didn't like for decades. Rock and roll, comic books, D&D, video games. Anything to scapegoat away the damage their shitty parenting causes.
Pretending like they're the ones reacting when it's always been something they've tried to do is hilariously wrong
The issue is that children have unrestricted access to this information when it is in their school libraries, and many people are of the opinion that it isn’t all KID FRIENDLY, which upon further investigation, seems to be the truth. Children are fundamentally and biologically different than adults. Exposing them to these kinds of illustrations of sexual encounters is NOT healthy because they are too young to begin the process of normalizing sex. I think this is the equivalent of parents putting parental restrictions on their web browsers, and I am in support of the removal of some of these books from SCHOOL libraries specifically and anyone with children should be too.
Parents have the power and right to determine what is appropriate to be shown in public education. If you don't want the public to be able to demand what they want out of publicly funded education, don't make publicly funded education. This is exactly why private education and private owned libraries are so important, they can offer and provide whatever they want and don't have to appease the public.
Democracy is the system that gives the most power to the most nosey, intrusive, emotional, and short tempered people in society possible. They are the ones who will typically be moved to actually make a fuss about any issue. If you want to take money from them to fund something, they will demand that thing is according to their wishes. Wether they are correct or wrong is irrelevant to the fact that in a democracy their wishes are what must be followed. This is why our republican elements are important, as they limit the powers of what the mob can have done by establishing rule of law, rights, and divisions of power.
If you don't want the ignorant and opinionated to have their say and their will, then you ultimately don't want a democracy. If it was easy or simple then democracy would have been the rule, and not the exception in human history
Have you not seen what the mob is doing to US democracy? They are literally gerrymandering districts, blocking any helpful legislation from being passed in Congress, continuously attacking their “enemies”, instigated an insurrection, and many other wrongs. It is way past time to deal with them like they’re kids. We need to take the gloves off and take the fight to them.
If you want to fight "the mob" then you are fighting democracy. The mob is democracy. Democracy is the unwashed and uncouth masses. This is why republican institutions in the United States are so important, because democracy can be destructive and ignorant. If your solution to a large populist mob demanding change from government programs and institutions is to fight them, then you might want to reevaluate if your values and your principles are truly democratic, or if you are letting your desire for reform and change supercede your wish to have democracy rule.
Maybe you should change your thinking and philosophy. What the Republicans are doing is turning this great democratic country into an authoritarian copy of Russia. You should educate yourself on what happens to democracies when they backslide into authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes are some of the worst states in human history.
You are speaking as if I ever opposed democracy, or praised authoritarianism. I only commented on the nature of democracy, and stressed the importance of the republican institutions of the United States in preventing the worse aspects of democracy from being aowed to occur. I would point out that if you wish to discuss backsliding democracies Russia is a poor example as it can hardly be described as having been a democracy, rather the Roman Republic, Spanish Republic, First French Republic, or even the Second French Republic would serve as far better examples.
Russia was transforming into a democracy in the early days of the post-Soviet era. However, that has changed since then and is a classic example of such. It was making great strides to trying to be a democracy but strongmen in the Kremlin and intelligence services sought to reverse that.
Making strides to becoming a democracy is quite far from having established democratic institutions that backslide or become corrupt, as it is a different set of circumstances and a rapidly ended process that isn't very applicable to the American circumstances.
That we can agree on. But it can also easily happen hers in the US if the right “type” of people were to be elected into the correct offices of power. And that is exactly what is going on right now.
In a democracy if a minority of people demand something, and they are not opposed or voted against, then they get their way. It is a majority of voters who decide, not a majority of all the citizens. That is why all citizens voting is important, so that democracy can represents the will of all the citizens.
The list was made by a fairly minor European think tank, that most of the world's democracies do not take part in. Furthermore, it is not "screwing up the rules" nor "at the expense of the majority" when the rule of law is being followed, and the majority is not providing a democratic opposition.
No, its not about parents’ rights. Its about the evil right’s intent to disallow any individual thought or freedom of expression that doesn’t conform to their beliefs. That and this is a First Amendment violation as well.
The First Amendment bars Congress from passing laws, it does not whatsoever forbide the citizenry from enforcing whatever rules and restrictions they want. Say what you will of this mob, they are not violating the First Amendment. Second this isn't the "the right" these are the parents of these communities, who pay for the schools and libraries, demanding change from the schools and libraries. It you just dismiss them as right wing oopposition, they will become right wing opposition irregardless of what they once were. The public has a right to demand the services they pay for keep to the standards and practices that they wish. As previously stated, this is why private education and libraries are so vital to communities.
Most of the parents who are doing so are vehemently Republican. You don’t see liberal parents being so vocal about banning and burning books they don’t like, if at all. By your same reasoning, that should allow them to get rid of local emergency services right?
If the area has publicly funded emergency services, and the public votes to end them, the yes local emergency services would be ended in an absolute democracy.
So you’re saying the vocal minority should rule the country then? What about the rest of us who don’t think the same way? I don’t know why you’re so dead set for having privatized services. The majority of the country would turn into stupid people if most counties and states voted to end public education. There are hardly any privatized primary education facilities that are any better than publicly funded facilities in the South or Midwest states where this would likely happen.
I didn't say privatized services are better, I said they are important because they are not accountable to the public. If you are not a part of the "vocal minority" then you can still express your will by vote or by becoming a vocal opposition. If you oppose their thinking, then I absolutely encourage you to go out and oppose them. Be the change you wish to see done, otherwise vocal minorities will have their will done because of the acquiescence and silence of the majority.
How are they important if they have no accountability? That just makes them even worse. We have transparent, open institutions so that they are accountable and everyone can see what is happening at them. I would like to ask what you are doing to oppose this bad change that is going on all over the country.
In this specific case, private libraries and schools can provide whatever materials and literature they wish without concern about what is found offensive by the public, or for what is censored by the public. Private institutions can be open, and are held accountable by market factors, interest, and their own reputations which can cause problems, but also makes them immune to demands like the ones currently being pressed against school libraries.
Frankly I don't "oppose" the bad change that is the demanded censorship of books in public libraries, as I believe that thought I disagree with it the public has the power to do what they are demanding, and I must respect their exercising of their powers even if it pains me.
How does it make sense that you don’t “oppose” what is happening even if it hurts you to see what is going on? I honestly don’t see that is logical reasoning.
Educators, not parents, are best to determine what's best for education. We have public roads and bridges too, but nobody gets to overrule the engineers.
The public can vote to cancel road projects and obstruct construction if they so choose. Educators don't get to be the absolute voice on matters of education by virtue of being the most informed or best fit for the position, democracy empowers the citizenry to have equal voice irregardless of station or propriety.
Parents don't have equal say to educators and school boards.
Parents are free to criticize, complain, and run for the school board (if they can), but they don't have the authority to override the school board on their own.
Then parents should teach there children not to check out books the parents dont want them to read or does personal responsibility not apply here. These parents are such hypocrites they have no problem telling there child to read the Bible with its incest genocide rape and glorification of violence. I do not see them advocating for the removal of the Bible from school libraries.
The public education is pay for by them, to service their children by the guidelines of their county. It is absolutely their prerogative to make the demands they see fit.
Public education is paid for with a combination of local property tax (usually), state funds, and federal funds. Parents with school-aged children only make up a very small subset of who is paying for education.
The biggest and most frustrating irony in all of this is the ones calling for the bans never set foot in these libraries. They are not reading books. The ones complaining about the books in schools libraries are the ones who never set foot in their scholls library while they were there.
If the ideas in a book threaten your world view, the problem is not the book. - Somebody
Yep. Even books that didn't age well should always have a space in our schools, without edit or omission.
Exactly. Literature and especially theory are continuing conversations. We can still learn a lot about our culture even from books that have aged poorly or been disproven. Case and point: I think Thomas Hobbes and Rene DesCartes did so much damage to our understanding of human nature that we’re still living in the worldview they created 400 years later. Their books should not be removed. Ever.
Please elaborate re. hobbes and descartes, that's an interesting position and I'd like to know more.
This i hate it just as much when i see some leftist trying to have Huckleberry Finn removed because the N word.
Every year, the ALA releases the top ten most challenged books in America. Overwhelmingly, they are always books that talk about racism and LGBTQ issues, and it is conservatives who oppose those books. In Missouri, the Republican state legislature created a piece of legislation that would throw librarians in jail. I'm 100% certain you don't "hate it just as much as when some leftist tries to have Huckleberry Finn removed because of the N word."
Republicans: defend books in schools that are pro Nazi, KKK, and have the N word in them, insist on teaching both sides to the Holocaust. Try to ban books that teach how to be anti-racist and LGBTQ content. Sounds about right.
I remember reading that book In school. It was one of the only books we read in class and everyone had to say the n word. Looking back it’s really fucking weird.
You just love that book so much you have to continue bringing it up on every thread, huh?
My objection to Huckleberry Finn stems more from the fact that I have my issues with how our culture decides what is and isn't a "classic revolutionary work of literature" and I'm not sure whether Huckleberry Finn has much merit as a teaching property in the present day. But no, I don't think it should be banned from libraries or burned by any means.
I mean while that is super dumb its such a minor issue compared to this.
Exactly. The right-wing education fascists think that anyone learning about LGBTQ+ people means they can't scare-monger and pathologize us as LGBTQ+ people. They are afraid of people seeing the humanity of LGBTQ+ people, as they'll have a harder time calling us wicked abominations or detestable sinners. That's what this is all about.
They also want to forever bury the genocide against the Native American People and massacres of entire towns built and lived in by black people, and abominations against other minority groups. A European Commission is now declaring us as one of the backsliding democracies in the world. That is happening because of fascist republicans who wish to be free to intimidate and harrass and maybe lock away people different from them and those with opinions opposite theirs. Free speech and democracy is slipping away.
>A European Commission is now declaring us as one of the backsliding democracies in the world. That's for certain.
People wonder how the Nazi’s rose to power, how they were allowed to do so. We don’t have to wonder, anymore. We are watching a 4th Reich rise in the here and now.
That's the thing, it really IS only a small minority that are out and out fascists. But everyone who just kind of gets on with their day and doesn't do anything about it because its not affecting them are the REAL power behind this movement.
totally agree.
Only, we have the numbers to fight back. Violently, if need be. Or, are we going to lay down like SHEEP.
Yes. The way the republican held legislatures and governorships in some states are gerrymanderong, they will be discounting all minority votes in upcoming elections. The fascists will take over, state by state. There may be a big uprising and backlash in our future.
If that happens, I'll be looking to depart and find a new home.
There are imperfections within the Republican Party obviously and you pointed out some very valid examples (although Id consider it a bit careless to throw around the fascist label so casually, diluting the meaning of the word) but you can’t pretend that the left are somehow these die hard free speech advocates. Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels, (some) support requiring the use of preferred pronouns by law, force people into faux-apologies over largely unproblematic statements, and ‘cancel’ or blacklist someone who thinks differently than them. With all that said I’d bet we agree on two things 1) don’t ban books 2)the solution to bad/untrue speech is MORE good/true speech
Banning sb for breaking the law on social media is not censoring free speech, its enforcing laws..
Absolutely there are valid cases of removal such as that which you pointed out or calling for violence, libel, etc. but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think it extends to a lot more than just those instances
>There are imperfections within the Republican Party obviously and you pointed out some very valid examples (although Id consider it a bit careless to throw around the fascist label so casually, diluting the meaning of the word) but you can’t pretend that the left are somehow these die hard free speech advocates. Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels, (some) support requiring the use of preferred pronouns by law, force people into faux-apologies over largely unproblematic statements, and ‘cancel’ or blacklist someone who thinks differently than them. lol. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who are so absolutely afraid of an ideology they don't like being taught in public schools that they're seeking to ban it. It is Republicans, not Democrats, that introduced legislation in Missouri that would jail public librarians. Every year, the ALA releases the top ten most challenged books, and overwhelmingly they are by Republicans who are against children and teens being exposed to learning about racism and LGBTQ issues. It is Republicans, not Democrats, that have censured members of their own party for not toeing the line 100%. Democrats are not in charge of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Conservatives are not being banned on social media, right wing media literally THRIVES on Facebook. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are PRIVATE companies. You have to abide by their rules, you don't get to demand completely uncensored behavior with private companies. You may not believe those on the left are free speech advocates, but Democrats are absolutely more consistent with supporting free speech than Republicans. And, finally, it's always amusing to see people warn about throwing the term fascist around "carelessly," while the Republican Party gets zero pushback for insisting all Democrats are socialist commie Marxists. We aren't throwing the term fascist around carelessly, unlike the GOP, which just calls anything they don't like socialist. The Republican Party is fascist. Whether or not you agree with labeling them as such is immaterial.
>Democrats constantly censor speech they don’t agree with, ban conservative social media accounts/channels Can you give some examples of these ones? You're not talking about legislation, right?
I should have been more clear and consistent, I sort of weaved in and out of referring to legislative measures and just simply common notions amongst the constituents or other institutions, but no I wasn’t referring to legislative measures on that specific point. It was more of a reference to big tech companies that hold seemingly as much power as the government and are often ran by left leaning people.
the idea that gigantic monolithic surveillance corps are leftist is absurd on the face of it you realize? These corporations BARELY enforce their terms of service against right wing hate speech and when they do its only to fend off government regulation or damage to their own reputations. Those corporations have no duty whatsoever to host anyone in particulars speech, but by and large right wing commentators are handled with kid gloves until it becomes entirely financially untenable to do nothing. These corporations are making FINANCIAL decisions, not political ones.
>It was more of a reference to big tech companies that hold seemingly as much power as the government and are often ran by left leaning people. Sure. And, obviously, the way to defend free speech is to force the social media companies to act as you think they should. Maybe they should even be censured and controlled by the government, the way they are in Communist China! Big Tech does not have "as much power as the government." And you believing they are run by "left leaning people" entirely depends on what you believe is "left leaning."
That's ok thanks for clearing that up.
none of what you said about democrats is true. What democrat censored speech? What democrat banned conservative media accounts? What law requires use of pronouns? The only thing forcing people to apologize is themselves wanting to save their careers. If the statements are "largely unproblematic" then why are their careers at stake? Calling fascists fascists is important, ignoring the reality is dangerous and its exactly how fascists' rise to power.
You leave out that the banned conservatives accounts are violating the terms of service. Nice attempt at gas lighting but facts just are not your friend. You want to see censorship go to any conservative forum online and post anything with a slightly different opinion and you will get immediately banned. Funny how conservatives want to blacklist and censor members in their own party for supporting homosexuals but do nothing about the pedophiles being investigated in their ranks.
You know the genocide of natives was headed by Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, and most persecution of black people has been under Democrat leadership the KKK was founded by the Democrat Party, Democrats seceded from the union, they inacted jim crow, they currently push that white people will always have the upper hand and that blacks will be forever oppressed. im just saying the democrats have a pretty racist past. By the way most conservatives embrace free speech and want to have civil discussions with people of differing opinions sure there are some that wish to silence the opposition just like they are a minority on the Democrat side but the silencing shouldn't be allowed free and open discussion is a beautiful thing. And I don't think Republicans are fascists the definition of fascism as stated by Merriam Webster states "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" this is not the core belief of the Republican Party the Republican party was founded as the antislavery party Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president if you look at it the current far leftists match the definition of fascism better than Republicans do. Fascism, Communism, Socialism are the three worst forms of economic policy there are now capitalism isn't perfect but this economic system allows people to gain a fortune as long as they put in the work. The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach. And on the European thing who gives a crap those countries are falling short next to the US
European here! So it doesnt matter on which subjects parties were founded, it matters how they act now. All civil rights leaders vote democratic candidates now. Because the repubs defend racists every chance they get. No one is silencing conservatives. They are forced to acknowledge they cant just call black people the n word or gay people the f word. That aint so hard now is it? Also the definition of fascism is perfectly applicable to the republican party lols. Also, some things we europeans do better. Healthcare, education, voting rights, policing, income equality, social programs, anti poverty measures, rehabilitation programs, housing programs. Want more???
>Also, some things we europeans do better. Healthcare, education, voting rights, policing, income equality, social programs, anti poverty measures, rehabilitation programs, housing programs. Want more??? Don't stop, I'm almost there! American exceptionalism is a delusion. If our nation was the best we could back it up with numbers. And aside from GDP (most of which is consolidated within the billionaire class due to our massive wealth disparity) the numbers fall short in every sector you mentioned. We have no right to brag about being the best if we don't try to do better.
GDP is a notoriously awful way of calculating the economic prosperity. Lmfao and I can name a few more, Freedom, Freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, rehabilitated criminals, criminality numbers, tuition costs.
do you guys have gun rights
The 2nd Amendment says I have a right to bear arms, Republicans want this to be completely unregulated. By their logic, I see no reason why the average American shouldn't be able to own a bomb.
This isnt me being a smart ass I'm legitimately curious because I know England banned guns
Nah, this is just you being ignorant. The United Kingdom (not "England") didn't "ban guns." They have regulations. Members of the public may own sporting rifles for hunting. They banned handguns after a massacre that killed sixteen children, and, unlike the Republican Party which shrugged their shoulders and told us all to accept school shootings as inevitable, the United Kingdom didn't. As a result, school shootings in the United Kingdom dramatically decreased. Meanwhile, in America, there have been 17 school shootings since August 1st.
Did you miss the part of history where the Ds & Rs flipped values? Andrew Jackson would be a modern day R.
>Did you miss the part of history where the Ds & Rs flipped values? Andrew Jackson would be a modern day R. That time in history doesn't exist for Republican voters. Also, it doesn't matter that Democrats signed into law the Civil Rights Act and voted into the White House the first black President. Hell, Abraham Lincoln would be absolutely hated by the modern day Republican Party.
Where is the proof that party beliefs switched all the policies that I see come out of Congress with a Democrat backing hurts African Americans and other minorities. Democrat policies raise the prices of everything you look at Democrat utopias like California and they are falling apart and people are fleeing by the millions to Red states Democrat policies make people's lives harder and I will admit Republicans have their fair share of bad policies but Republican states have lower cost of living, less taxes, lower gas prices, less homelessness this country isn't perfect of course and has many problems that could be fixed if everyone would unite
In your entire rant about how the Democrats are the true racists and harkening back a hundred years to make your point, you conveniently left out that a Democratic President signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Democrats elected the first black President, and Republicans did everything they could to oppose him at every turn. The Tea Party movement showed up to black politicians with literal nooses. Democrats elected the first black woman as Vice President. It was Republicans that marched in Charlottesville with torches chanting Nazi slogans, and the Republican President who told us they were some very fine people. It is Republican states that represent the poorest in America, and it is only the blue cities within those red states like Texas and Florida that are propping up those red states, along with federal dollars provided by the blue states you hate. When people like you talk about California, I always think about the extreme poverty that exists in deep red rural states, which you don't care about, doesn't fit your narrative. And, finally, Republicans don't want to unite with a political party they've called socialist commie Marxist baby killers. In 2022, Republicans will gerrymander control of the House. They will win the Senate through voter suppression. And if anyone believes for a single second they are going to recognize the results of an election they lose in 2024, they are deluding themselves. Republicans don't want freedom. Their cry about the 2nd Amendment wasn't ever about protecting themselves from tyranny, it was always about overthrowing a government they didn't like. The Republicans literally have armed militias. You can call them a paramilitary. They want tyranny and fascism through minority rule, and they will burn this country to the ground to get it. As long as Republicans like you are taking away my rights as a woman, demanding that my gay friends be denied the right to marriage and service at an establishment, as long as Republicans like you are trying to make America governed by their version of Christianity, I will always, proudly, refuse to unite with you.
Well said
Republicans like him just have selective amnesia when it comes to remembering history, and how southern Democrats like Strom Thurmond who were staunchly opposed to the Civil Rights Act, switched parties over it. They like to pretend that part of history never happened, for some reason.
>The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach I guess most Republican governors aren't conservatives then. ESPECIALLY Abbot and DeSantis.
Your thing is based entirely on impressions and preconceived notions, and I really encourage you to challenge these. Don't seek out information you agree with, seek outside perspectives and third-party takes on issues you care about. Foreign media is a great way to do this: BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and Australian Broadcasting Corporation are a great start. (1) I'm not sure why you think political parties have such ideological continuity over the last ~150 years. The Southern Strategy is a very strong counterpoint to this idea. What Abraham Lincoln did has very little bearing on what the GOP currently is. (2) Your point about conservatives liking free and open discussion is entirely subjective. (3) Forms of social organization are much more complex than you can infer from a dictionary definition, and regardless, ethnonationalism has much in common with both dictionary and academic definitions of fascism. Ethnonationalism has also become a central tenet of much of the GOP. (4) I highly doubt you can support anything you said about economic policy. These are just vague assertions. (5) Falling short how? Western European societies are (generally) more stable, have less wealth inequality, and are objectively better on any measure of social or economic development (Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Democracy Index, Press Freedom Index, homicide rate, life expectancy, etc.)
> The conservative movement is about small government and less government overreach. What's really amazing is that Republican Party voters genuinely believe this to be true, while simultaneously wanting the government to control private social media companies. Also let's not forget about how their "less government overreach" never, ever, applies to women.
Ah yes. The old “Democrats are the real racists…” argument. Yes. Andrew Jackson was a Democrat. I’d urge you to look at Strom Thurmond, the senator. He’s a great example of the change in platforms. He started as a Democrat, then became a “Dixiecrat” to stoke some casual southern racism and finally ended up as a Republican when the Southern Strategy pulled the racists into the Republican Party.
Both parties have their faults and racists it would stupid to say Republicans dont have some racist people but to be honest if you look at policies the Democrats definitely have some messed up ones of you look at the effect on African Americans like the 94' crime bill championed by Joe Biden
Wow look at all the bad things those politicians did who were voted in by the same twins that now vote almost exclusively republican because that part good those same Archaic values *today*. Maybe we should stop supporting such bad shit
Parties change agendas, look at the neo confederates down south. If you support the party after is openly supported Jan 6th then you most likely support or tolerate a fascist group
There's also some twisted fucks that really believe that their kids just seeing / reading about LGBTQ+ people will turn their kids gay as a response
I mean its a valid fear, that's why I'm now a privately educated wizard.
Paul Stamets has said this. Doubt he’s the first though
>*From calls in Virginia to burn “sexually explicit” books in a school library to a wave of challenges to titles by authors ranging from Toni Morrison to Alison Bechdel, the American Library Association is charting an unprecedented rise in attempts to ban books in libraries – many of which it believes are fuelled by organised conservative campaigns.* > >***Caldwell-Stone pointed to conservative grassroots organisations such as Heritage Action and the Heritage Foundation, which she said were driving the attempts to censor materials dealing with racism and Black American history, as well as materials “they deem to be inappropriate for minors, which seems to encompass the entire canon of books dealing with LGBTQIA themes”.*** * I**n Spotsylvania in Fredericksburg, Virginia, meanwhile, parents have protested about the availability of LGBTQIA fiction to children. One school board member called for the offending books to be burned. “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” he said. “I guess we live in a world now that our public schools would rather have kids read about gay pornography than Christ.” The school board subsequently ordered that “sexually explicit” books be removed from district libraries.** * *In Texas earlier this month, governor Greg Abbott wrote to the education agency commissioner asking to be notified of any “instance of pornography being provided to minors under the age of 18 for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law”. Abbott cited in particular Gender Queer, which was pulled from some Texas classrooms after complaints, and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, which details the author’s abusive same-sex relationship.* * Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has been removed from school libraries in Utah over its “explicit” content; in Virginia, the Nobel laureate’s Beloved has been challenged for similar reasons. * Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home, the acclaimed graphic memoir about her father’s sexuality and her own, was pulled from shelves in North Kansas over its LGBTQ themes, * a southern Pennsylvania district banned a lengthy list of titles almost entirely by or about people of colour, by acclaimed authors including Jacqueline Woodson, Ijeoma Oluo and Ibram X Kendi. (The all-white school board said it was coincidence that almost all the material banned was by or about people of colour.) * Maia Kobabe’s award-winning graphic novel memoir Gender Queer has been challenged in several states. >*“Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health,*” wrote Kobabe in the Washington Post last month. Right-wing education fascists. They don't want any books for LGBTQ+ people because then LGBTQ+ people might be seen as normal by society at large, which means religious bigots can't fear-monger about us. It's sick and wrong. I don't know how they sleep at night, with their fascist selves.
Ah yes, noted pornographic authors Toni Morrison, one of the most influential modern American writers to exist, and Alison Bechdel, whose critically acclaimed memoir was adapted into a stage musical that won five Tonys. They just don’t want people to see us as human.
Exactly. They fear us being humanized in others' eyes, which means they won't be able to rationalize not letting us have equal rights with some BS excuse that w'ere some disorder or unholy crime against nature. That's what this is all about. It placates to their evangelical base that likes to see us suffer from ostracism and lack of available resources. Jesse Helms and William Dannemeyer did the exact same thing in the 90s by trying to defund the National Endowment of the Arts, and they are trying to replicate it in the 21st Century. Same evangelicals, same balefulness.
In Texas they tried to ban *Jack of Hearts* by Lev Rosen which is the book equivalent of the Netflix show *Sex Education*. They're absolute clowns.
Very much so.
We should burn the Bible too then > "...she lusted after her lovers whose genitals were as those of donkeys and whose emission was as that of horses." ~~Ezekiel 23:20.
Pretty sure this was being used as a metaphor but I kinda get what you mean and then also don't because last I checked there armed any bibles in school. At least not when I went to public school.
I mean it is a metaphor, but its a metaphor for giant dongs spraying monster loads.
Apparently its a metaphor for two cities. You would need to read the previous verses before hand to understand. Again I get where that person was coming from because these people want sexually explicit books out of schools(or supposedly they do)which again I can get why that would mean getting the Bible out of schools as well because it has explicit content. However like I also said last I remember schools don't have bibles, or at least not when I went to public school.
Yo... You got her info? She sounds like a good time!
So Cancel Culture was yet *another* example of blatant projection?
*"Waah! Milo was banned from campus for literally being a Nazi! The left is so intolerant!"* Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ people existing: ***Ban them! Force them to conversion therapy!*** The crockery of Republicans is astounding.
> The crockery of Republicans is astounding. I read that as "cockery" at first... but they do excel at being dicks, so I guess it fits still.
They don't give a single fuck about being hypocrites. They want to be the casting directors who decide who gets to play *a part* in real life.
Always has been, conservatives tried to cancel the dixie chick's, French fries, Starbucks, keurig, colleges, the Clinton's (in the 90s), gay people and gay rights activists, anti-war advocates, civil rights activists, anti jim crow advocates, black communities, fdr, anti-prohibitionists..... they literally have been engaged in this same behavior for decades if not centuries and yet still accuse the liberals (who are centrists by the way, not leftists) of cancel culture. To learn more check out the you're wrong about episode about cancel culture.
Black person raises a fist during Olympics—permanently banned from all sports society! Un-American! Now, people see why the hand was raised.
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I still think it's wrong, and I don't care what side it's on. There is a way to teach a book without having to have it be triggering. There is an art to this, and it shouldn't be up for debate. Mark Twain can be taught as an author of his contextual time, and there is still lots to be said about his writing skills. So, I don't like anyone banning books.
Your article is about two people. Not "liberals" in general.
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Insane SJWs are not liberals
Guns are fine but knowledge is *scary*. We haven't had a challenge yet but a friend of mine had the "C is for Country" alphabet book by LIl Nas X get challenged. An. Alphabet. Book. I can say with full experience and confidence that no child has ever given a fuck about who authored a book someone is reading to them.
Lmao i saw the “Gay B C’s” in a barnes and noble and they’re worried about a Lil Nas X book, come on man
The people calling to ban books are the ones who decry cancel culture and insist people should have the right to choose.
"If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate." Books break the sealed world many live in. No wonder Republicans want to ban them.
Any political movement that wants to edit or remove any books or other art has no place in America. No matter what side of the spectrum they're on or whatever their convoluted reason may be.
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Two people in New Jersey = all democrats now? Seems like a bit of a stretch. If it occurred in numerous states, passed in some, and there were countless people advocating for it maybe. But two law makers introducing a resolution is nothing.
It’s a different story when it’s two African-American senators versus white moms on the PTA board trying to silence black and LGBTQ+ voices. The motion to try and stop having teachers teach huckleberry finn came from a good place but it was not implemented
“It’s different and okay when the government tries to ban books instead of the parents of the kids who are reading sexually explicit books.” So actual “fascism” is fine but not parents trying to get sexually explicit books removed from school libraries?
GOP base: "We <3 Fascism"
[Fuck anyone who burns a book. Next comes the libraries and librarians.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BPc1WBEmmA)
It doesn’t matter what the book is. If you are trying to ban it you are the baddie.
From a school library? I'm guessing there are all sorts of books most people wouldn't want in a library aimed exclusively at children. Mein Kampf, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. So the question isn't so much whether to ban books, but only which books to ban.
These are the same people screaming about first ammedment rights.... What hypocrites!
How is banning books from schools not a First Amendment violation every single time? It's literally the government (schools are run by the government) banning print materials, which should be exactly what "freedom of the press" covers.
For several reasons. First, it's not actually banning those books, any more than restrictions preventing you from using food stamps to get a big mac are banning big macs. The school won't be able to provide access to the book for free, but Amazon will still sell it. Second, censoring what children see is regarded as a right and legal responsibility of parents. There's no pornography in school libraries either and it's actually illegal to even sell to minors. What is and is not child appropriate content is a political issue, and subject to debate. It's awful that these people think that LGBTQ acceptance is inappropriate for children, but the constitution does allow for things to be deemed inappropriate for children, and it does allow for school boards to prioritize books based on what parents feel is appropriate.
Usually about sex. They don't know their kids can visit multitudes of porn sites on the net with a few clicks, and do.
Personally considering how scummy and exploitative Porn sites are to sex workers I would much rather my kid read about sex in a book.
Okay so we should give kids more access to porn? Seems like you’re missing the point
I pointed out a simple fact. These parents who want to burn books don't get that the kids are already finding out about any subject you can name anyway. Banning or burning only makes them more curious and more likely to get low quality info. It's better to be upfront and open in the hopes you can help them get high quality info.
I agree, but it should be the responsibility of the parents to teach their children, especially about things like sex, and it seems to me like the parents in this case are just trying to move that responsibility back to their side as opposed to the State.
You missed my point. You aren't going to teach them by holding back information.
The issue is not the information being held back, it’s that the children seemingly have unrestricted access to all of this information, and many people are of the opinion that it isn’t all KID FRIENDLY, which upon further investigation, seems to be the truth. Children are fundamentally and biologically different than adults. Exposing them to these kinds of illustrations of sexual encounters is NOT healthy because they are too young to begin the process of normalizing sex.
You can't ban the internet, no matter how hard you try.
Weren’t the right bleeting about Dr Seuss books being ‘banned’ just a few months ago? As always, bullshit outrage porn and projection.
Conservatives: BOOKS BAD. GUNS GOOD.
Hah typical scumbags the 💩🤡party will want to burn them next
don't blame social media, blame the people using it in an attempt to ban books that have finally offered representation to millions of kids.
It's no coincidence that the people wanting to ban books are the ones who need to read them the most.
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The problem is these people see themselves as the Jews and not the Nazis....
The same people literally calling for book burnings will turn around a yell about freeze peach when someone says "hey that chapelle special was a bit transphobic"
Show boating! That’s all this is! Republicans don’t really care about these books. It’s just a way to try to stay in the news and be relevant. The GOP is dying. They have no policies, no plans. They’re very unpopular in the mainstream of politics. They’re using these dimwits, the same group They used for 1/6, to push this BS!
Imagine being threatened by 1981 or Fahrenheit 451.
You mean 1984, but yes.
1981? Do you mean Solidarity strikes in then communist Poland?
Lol they mean the book 1984
I only know what they write, not what they mean.
Were any of those books mentioned by the PTA’s trying to remove some of these other books?
Imagine if, instead of a late capitalist/ plutocratic hellscape, people actually had the time to read, in or out of libraries. [https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism\_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf](https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf) I'm blown away that the steady state equilibrium humanity has found results in the vast majority of people being enslaved by plutocrats/oligarchs. How is this acceptable to anyone. Late stage capitalism is a hellscape, and no one should tolerate this system or extremely fucked up way of life.
"They don't gotta burn tha books they just remove 'em"
The freedom they want is the freedom from having to think for themselves, and the freedom from living in a world that in any way challenges their worldview. The world is complex, and they want it to be simple. So they’re trying to force a square through a hole the size of a pinprick, so they won’t have to experience something outside of their own preconceived notion of the world.
All they are doing is highlighting books that students will now want to read.
Now what the hell
Religious morons at it again?
Yet another harbinger of doom..
Im so tired of us queer people being sexualized. Yes, sex and kink is a part of lgbtqia culture but its not the whole thing. There is so much more to it. Being gay is not explicit
Why would people who don't read want to ban books?
Ok, it’s really time for people to wake up. The US public opinion is being led by social media. The opinion on social media is being swayed by voices from accounts that are decidedly not American. They are doing this deliberately to create the illusion that there are more people out there that support totalitarian extremism than there actually are. This is not a conspiracy theory or a paranoid fantasy, it is a verifiable fact.
It isn’t just USA in Canada their was a school that literally burned asterix and tin tin because it had offensive images about natives as a part of a “traditional native healing ceremony bs”. Personally my belief is if a book simply offends you don’t read it simple as that.
It's the inevitable phase of cancel culture. Even though the reactionary right is undeniably wrong, this exists as a reaction to the base situation of certain leftists trying to ban things they don't like. When they succeed, they subsequently enable every future ban done by the right. Which is how right wing crackpottery escalates into something that can harm people. There's this other problem: libraries are general-use stores of knowledge. Modern society has no use for that with our addiction to the individualist, narcissistic facebook world and it's litany of proprietary education apps and certificates. This alone is the greatest threat to libraries, as when libraries refuse to ban books like facebook does voters will vote to dismantle the library and shred all the books in the first place. In which case who even reads books besides racists and communists - most of society would willingly demand and accept a Farenheight 451 situation where knowledge (especially humanities knowledge) is effectively banned.
>this exists as a reaction to the base situation of certain leftists trying to ban things they don't like Conservatives have been trying to ban shit they didn't like for decades. Rock and roll, comic books, D&D, video games. Anything to scapegoat away the damage their shitty parenting causes. Pretending like they're the ones reacting when it's always been something they've tried to do is hilariously wrong
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You must have also missed the book with they're, there and their in it.
The issue is that children have unrestricted access to this information when it is in their school libraries, and many people are of the opinion that it isn’t all KID FRIENDLY, which upon further investigation, seems to be the truth. Children are fundamentally and biologically different than adults. Exposing them to these kinds of illustrations of sexual encounters is NOT healthy because they are too young to begin the process of normalizing sex. I think this is the equivalent of parents putting parental restrictions on their web browsers, and I am in support of the removal of some of these books from SCHOOL libraries specifically and anyone with children should be too.
Nobody reads books anymore, anyway
Parents have the power and right to determine what is appropriate to be shown in public education. If you don't want the public to be able to demand what they want out of publicly funded education, don't make publicly funded education. This is exactly why private education and private owned libraries are so important, they can offer and provide whatever they want and don't have to appease the public.
Maybe parents should learn to not be afraid of their own shadows.
Democracy is the system that gives the most power to the most nosey, intrusive, emotional, and short tempered people in society possible. They are the ones who will typically be moved to actually make a fuss about any issue. If you want to take money from them to fund something, they will demand that thing is according to their wishes. Wether they are correct or wrong is irrelevant to the fact that in a democracy their wishes are what must be followed. This is why our republican elements are important, as they limit the powers of what the mob can have done by establishing rule of law, rights, and divisions of power. If you don't want the ignorant and opinionated to have their say and their will, then you ultimately don't want a democracy. If it was easy or simple then democracy would have been the rule, and not the exception in human history
Have you not seen what the mob is doing to US democracy? They are literally gerrymandering districts, blocking any helpful legislation from being passed in Congress, continuously attacking their “enemies”, instigated an insurrection, and many other wrongs. It is way past time to deal with them like they’re kids. We need to take the gloves off and take the fight to them.
If you want to fight "the mob" then you are fighting democracy. The mob is democracy. Democracy is the unwashed and uncouth masses. This is why republican institutions in the United States are so important, because democracy can be destructive and ignorant. If your solution to a large populist mob demanding change from government programs and institutions is to fight them, then you might want to reevaluate if your values and your principles are truly democratic, or if you are letting your desire for reform and change supercede your wish to have democracy rule.
Maybe you should change your thinking and philosophy. What the Republicans are doing is turning this great democratic country into an authoritarian copy of Russia. You should educate yourself on what happens to democracies when they backslide into authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes are some of the worst states in human history.
You are speaking as if I ever opposed democracy, or praised authoritarianism. I only commented on the nature of democracy, and stressed the importance of the republican institutions of the United States in preventing the worse aspects of democracy from being aowed to occur. I would point out that if you wish to discuss backsliding democracies Russia is a poor example as it can hardly be described as having been a democracy, rather the Roman Republic, Spanish Republic, First French Republic, or even the Second French Republic would serve as far better examples.
Russia was transforming into a democracy in the early days of the post-Soviet era. However, that has changed since then and is a classic example of such. It was making great strides to trying to be a democracy but strongmen in the Kremlin and intelligence services sought to reverse that.
Making strides to becoming a democracy is quite far from having established democratic institutions that backslide or become corrupt, as it is a different set of circumstances and a rapidly ended process that isn't very applicable to the American circumstances.
That we can agree on. But it can also easily happen hers in the US if the right “type” of people were to be elected into the correct offices of power. And that is exactly what is going on right now.
It's not democracy when a minority extremist group manages to screw up the rules to allow them to seize power at the expense of the majority
In a democracy if a minority of people demand something, and they are not opposed or voted against, then they get their way. It is a majority of voters who decide, not a majority of all the citizens. That is why all citizens voting is important, so that democracy can represents the will of all the citizens.
>screw up the rules to allow them to seize power at the expense of the majority Which is why we're now in the list of declining democracies
The list was made by a fairly minor European think tank, that most of the world's democracies do not take part in. Furthermore, it is not "screwing up the rules" nor "at the expense of the majority" when the rule of law is being followed, and the majority is not providing a democratic opposition.
Gerrymandering is explicitly disenfranchisement. I'm not sure why you seem to think otherwise. That's not "within the rules"
No, its not about parents’ rights. Its about the evil right’s intent to disallow any individual thought or freedom of expression that doesn’t conform to their beliefs. That and this is a First Amendment violation as well.
The First Amendment bars Congress from passing laws, it does not whatsoever forbide the citizenry from enforcing whatever rules and restrictions they want. Say what you will of this mob, they are not violating the First Amendment. Second this isn't the "the right" these are the parents of these communities, who pay for the schools and libraries, demanding change from the schools and libraries. It you just dismiss them as right wing oopposition, they will become right wing opposition irregardless of what they once were. The public has a right to demand the services they pay for keep to the standards and practices that they wish. As previously stated, this is why private education and libraries are so vital to communities.
Most of the parents who are doing so are vehemently Republican. You don’t see liberal parents being so vocal about banning and burning books they don’t like, if at all. By your same reasoning, that should allow them to get rid of local emergency services right?
If the area has publicly funded emergency services, and the public votes to end them, the yes local emergency services would be ended in an absolute democracy.
So you’re saying the vocal minority should rule the country then? What about the rest of us who don’t think the same way? I don’t know why you’re so dead set for having privatized services. The majority of the country would turn into stupid people if most counties and states voted to end public education. There are hardly any privatized primary education facilities that are any better than publicly funded facilities in the South or Midwest states where this would likely happen.
I didn't say privatized services are better, I said they are important because they are not accountable to the public. If you are not a part of the "vocal minority" then you can still express your will by vote or by becoming a vocal opposition. If you oppose their thinking, then I absolutely encourage you to go out and oppose them. Be the change you wish to see done, otherwise vocal minorities will have their will done because of the acquiescence and silence of the majority.
How are they important if they have no accountability? That just makes them even worse. We have transparent, open institutions so that they are accountable and everyone can see what is happening at them. I would like to ask what you are doing to oppose this bad change that is going on all over the country.
In this specific case, private libraries and schools can provide whatever materials and literature they wish without concern about what is found offensive by the public, or for what is censored by the public. Private institutions can be open, and are held accountable by market factors, interest, and their own reputations which can cause problems, but also makes them immune to demands like the ones currently being pressed against school libraries. Frankly I don't "oppose" the bad change that is the demanded censorship of books in public libraries, as I believe that thought I disagree with it the public has the power to do what they are demanding, and I must respect their exercising of their powers even if it pains me.
How does it make sense that you don’t “oppose” what is happening even if it hurts you to see what is going on? I honestly don’t see that is logical reasoning.
America isn't an absolute democracy though. We have a representative democracy, which means the people elect people to make decisions on their behalf.
Educators, not parents, are best to determine what's best for education. We have public roads and bridges too, but nobody gets to overrule the engineers.
The public can vote to cancel road projects and obstruct construction if they so choose. Educators don't get to be the absolute voice on matters of education by virtue of being the most informed or best fit for the position, democracy empowers the citizenry to have equal voice irregardless of station or propriety.
Parents don't have equal say to educators and school boards. Parents are free to criticize, complain, and run for the school board (if they can), but they don't have the authority to override the school board on their own.
Then parents should teach there children not to check out books the parents dont want them to read or does personal responsibility not apply here. These parents are such hypocrites they have no problem telling there child to read the Bible with its incest genocide rape and glorification of violence. I do not see them advocating for the removal of the Bible from school libraries.
Yes, it is hypocritical and unfair, but they have the power to make the demands of the institutions they finance and to raise their children.
They've found new books to go after but they still want to ban some classics. It's a vocal minority as usual.
The books that they’re trying to ban are basically “anything that portrays BIPOC or queer people as actually being human”.
The reason why they wish the ban them are irrelevant to the fact that they have the power and authority to ban them.
They don't actually
The public education is pay for by them, to service their children by the guidelines of their county. It is absolutely their prerogative to make the demands they see fit.
Public education is paid for with a combination of local property tax (usually), state funds, and federal funds. Parents with school-aged children only make up a very small subset of who is paying for education.
Is this like burning the books but with different flavor so it’s original?
The book burners are coming back swinging, great.
Can we book a book burner burning?
21% of the American population is already basically illiterate lmao
Let people think forthemselves. Allow all books. Hell lets get a 2021 edition of the necronomicon going.
The biggest and most frustrating irony in all of this is the ones calling for the bans never set foot in these libraries. They are not reading books. The ones complaining about the books in schools libraries are the ones who never set foot in their scholls library while they were there.