Bill from Missouri's Rep Ben Baker threatens librarians with prison sentences for allowing minors to read books banned by town committees

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/16/lock-her-up-2.html

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Bleeding heart liberal - they should be hanged. /s

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caint have yunguns readin’ about evilushun and civil rites and shit like that! Damn, we are so fucking boned so long as the right wing nutjobs control the levers of power.

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They need to find out about sex just like Rep Ben Baker did - in the barn - not the library.

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Christ, what an asshole.

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holds a BA in Biblical Literature from the Ozark Bible Institute

I thought that degree was BS.

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Ben Baker: “I don’t want to ban books, but…”

If I lived there, I would try to read the most awful parts of the Bible out loud and then ask them to prevent children from reading such filth.

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In this age of violent video games and streaming television and internet smut and mass shootings it’s almost quaint to hear there are still townsfolk in America who worry about libraries corrupting our youth.

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Time to contribute to the campaign of anyone running against Missouri’s Rep Ben Baker!

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…with their uncle

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How exactly does that get enforced if a kid takes a book from the shelf and starts reading it while still in the library?

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I was going to go with something like “His education was a little sheepish on the details but he studied until the cows come…”

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Next thing you know, them kids will want clean air / water / and a future worth living. Dang kids!

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Talk about a harsh punishment. It’s like if a cashier sold cigarettes to a minor and could be imprisoned for up to a year and the store was fined for all of their profits.

Now I’m imaging kids using a fake ID to check books out of the library.

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just read Song of Solomon. That will set them right off!

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Not entirely certain you spelled that right…

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Well, he seems to think that not removing the books from the library entirely gets him off the hook here. They’re just going to put people in jail and de-fund libraries if kids get to read books that a handful of randos think they shouldn’t! Totally fine!

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The state legislature is currently trying to address that problem by floating a bill that would make it a crime to teach children how to read.

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