This reminds me that the “sunlight is the best disinfectant” topic needs a companionate “BothSides-ism” topic.
ETA: Done.
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I’m sure there are better ways to start over than literally burning it all down, but I’m tired of the bullshit and cruelty and the…
Time we
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Agreed… maybe a metaphorical “burning down”?
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Ideas relating to things like how society should function only have power when they are allowed to spread outside of a single person’s brain.
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I think libraries should exercise some independence and judgement over content… practically, because there is limited space to house all the content out there, but also because they should have the option of removing materials deemed racist or misogynistic. Though there are reasons to house those materials for archival and scholarly purposes, they probably shouldn’t be on public display. I don’t know the text of the Illinois bill, but hopefully it considers those complexities.
What shouldn’t happen is politicians telling libraries what they can carry on their shelves or through virtual access.
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They have a list of between 250 and 500 books and the list is so long that this looks like a more efficient way of banning them all.
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The odd thing about it is that you can’t ban ideas because you can’t stop people thinking them up.
George Orwell explored that possibility with the “thought police” in his novel 1984.
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That’s not what’s happening here… No one suggested you “ban” ideas. But free speech DOES have limits. At some point you need to call people out for advocating for Genocide and stop giving them platforms to do so. We’re at this point right now with trans people. They’ve moved from questioning the rights of trans people to exist, and are now IMPLEMENTING POLICIES that ensure that they no longer exist in some states.
So pretending like the GOP is not currently attempting genocide isn’t particular helpful. You can ensure the safety and welfare of all people without “banning” thought… which, again no one suggested. It’s just misdirection to imply otherwise.
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Handy that 1984 is one of the books they are attempting to ban.
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I’ve seen many Republican attempts to claim that government services are better off being taken over by churches, but this is the weirdest. Yeah, sure, a good replacement for libraries is a small selection of religious books…
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If your ideals are so fragile that just knowing another opinion exists eviscerates them … maybe you don’t have good ideals.
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Are they? I know it’s been challenged in the past, but are the current crop of extremists targeting this book now? Mainly, they’re focused on books that discuss LGBQT+ rights, women’s rights, or the struggles faced by racial minorities in the US…
Seems like they enjoy using it as a cudgel against “socialist” policies. Since everyone is familiar with the fact that it’s about Stalin’s government, and they can paint all policies they don’t like as being in line with 1984…
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Taking what I think is your meaning, I think we’ve started building up a resistance to this in a lot of purple places…My wife is a school librarian, and we’re in the outskirts of NYC. There were a lot of school board fights and book challenges by trumpy people in a more Republican part of the 'burbs here starting a year or two ago (Carmel, Brewster) - particularly titles like Genderqueer.
The administrators were basically cowards in most places, leaving their librarians with no political cover against some really nasty and potentially dangerous people. But we’ve now seen a lot of lefty parents showing up and shouting those idiots down (I was doing this but found out there weren’t any fascists making it to our local school board meetings closer to the Hudson). It took about a year for everyone to finally get that we needed people to do this.
As with many other similar situations, once the fascists realize that they are outnumbered by angry people they generally seem to mostly want to STFU and go home… leaving your one local Karen on her own. This also helps the school board admins grow a spine.
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1984 and Farenheit 451 were part of the pile (along with the Bluest Eye, Their Eyes Were Watching God. and all of the LGTBQ material that you’d expect) in Carmel; a challenge doesn’t mean that it was actually banned, it just means that they puppetmasters of these idiots included it on the list of things that they suggested you go after. The only things that admins have caved on in Westchester/Putnam are the ones with graphic sexual content, particularly Genderqueer.
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Cool. Thanks.
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*Laughs in Washingtonian*
My state is widely regarded as some sort of progressive wonderland/hellscape depending on your perspective, when really it’s basically one highly populated blue county that gives us a Dem governor, majority Dem legislature, Dem US senators, and electoral college. It’s actually a hugely red state otherwise.
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They’ve always wanted to ban libraries. They’re just saying the quiet part loud now.
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