Banning books , to me, is even scarier than the idea of another major war. I love that bookstores and Libraries are setting up special displays of those books and encourage everyone to read them - teens, parents, school board members etc etc .
If parents are that concerned about their children's reading materials, they should read the books themselves and then have a conversation with their kids. I remember some of my 9-year-old students reading The Hunger Games, and I spoke to the parents about the graphic violence in them. Not one had read the books. All decided to put them aside until their kids were older. While I felt they were not developmentally appropriate for that age group, it was still up to their parents. Now we have parents/legislators looking to remove books they haven't even read from shelves . Literature is vital to learning, and reading what our kids are reading can be a learning experience in itself.
Hopefully the Republican war on books will only make them more appealing. I’m sure DeSantis won’t be averse to actual book burnings like his fascist forefathers engaged in.
Hi Will Prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Would you agree or disagree with the preceding definition?
You may have heard of BlackLivesMatter an organization “founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer.” The quote is from their website www.blacklivesmatter.com/about/
This is a post about book bans, not BLM. If you can list books about BLM and valid reasons why they ought to be banned (I fully expect you to have read them first as well) then you’ll be on topic, otherwise your whataboutism is just nonsense with a healthy heaping of racism.
Hi Rachel, your point is well made, and I have a new word to play with “whataboutism”. Although would you care to explain the “healthy heaping of racism”
You continue to maintain a false equivalence on objectionable speech: “ Not long ago, a large fuss was made about censorship on college campuses, after conservative speakers were shouted down by disapproving students. Some talks were canceled by spineless college administrators.”
The speakers who were shouted down were not simply “conservative speakers,” they were white nationalists and people of that ilk, people who spread hate speech. And colleges around the country were paying them with student fees - money collected from each enrolled student. It was a neat grift, the people who brought us things like the Unite the Right Rally in Charleston, and were motivational for many in the J6 insurrection were making a tidy living on the college speaker circuit.
I believe in free speech, but hate speech is not free speech and colleges should not have been paying people who spread hate.
I don’t think there is an analogous demagogue currently on the left.
Before you say troll. What Box would you place Ben Shapiro in? If you are unaware of who he is, Google him. Or go to YouTube and you can hear him speak. Now, you can say troll.
Mike the “gist” of your agreement is not all speech is or should be allotted the protection of the second Amendment. Yes, no?
The following is from Will’s article “Not long ago, a large fuss was made about censorship on college campuses, after conservative speakers….” He does not say who they are by name only they are conservative speakers.
The following are your words “The speakers who were shouted down were not simply “conservative speakers,” they were white nationalists and people of that ilk, people who spread hate speech.” Here you make the claim they were white nationalists who spread hate speech and infer that’s why they were shouted down by disapproving students. Yes, no?
Ben Shapiro is an American attorney, businessman, author, columnist, conservative political commentator, and media personality. He is by no stretch of the imagination a white nationalist, and one of the conservative speakers Will writes about, but does give a name too. Therefore, your assumption that the speakers shouted down were more than conservative speakers is not the whole truth. Again, he is by no stretch of the imagination a white nationalist Google him, better yet go to YouTube and hear him speak.
Since you keep referring to me as a troll, how did you come about the knowledge of a “classic troll move”??
You were the one who came out of the gate talking about trolling. You didn’t make note of my correction in my response to Will’s comment. And the gist of my post is that the idea that more free speech from “both sides” is failing us. Our “God given” rights are twisted to the detriment of society.
Mike, you hand me worried for a minute! I looked thru this whole thread and couldn’t find anywhere you had called me a Troll. Then I realized I was looking in the wrong place. Found it https://kentingley.substack.com/p/what-did-stefanik-know-about-santos scroll down to Jan 20 and there it is. Your replay to me, “Goodbye troll.”
Mike you right, I failed to take note. So, I took another look around and found something new in this little world.
I see music speaks to you, sometimes me too. Joe Strummer’s lyrics, what song are they from? I like Rush, the sound, the lyrics. The sound pulled me in, and the lyrics gave me something to contemplate. The following link is to Rush-Nobody's Hero with lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZokLZV35MI it’s a sad song and it tugs at the soul.
But I never mentioned white nationalists. Of course, I'm not going to defend white nationalists. But the squelching of speech on college campuses -- by students -- goes far beyond white nationalists. I was thinking in particular of the refusal of students at universities to allow speakers who voice support for Israel. Surely, this is not an issue as black-and-white as white nationalism. Here is a link to a story about UC Berkely law school banning pro-Israel, pro-Zionism speakers: https://tinyurl.com/3nwd2kfp
I don't object to support for Palestinians, but I do object to using that cause as justification for the suspension of certain Americans' free speech rights.
But the problem was much more subtle and far ranging. For example, the conservative club that formed at RPI. They attacked the management of the campus radio station which had a variety of alternative shows, many of them local. Once those were gone the conservative club had no interest in running the station, doing the work that was being done by people whose “liberal” opinions they opposed. They just broke it and walked away.
That sort of thing was happening at campuses around the country. But not widely reported or reported in any systematic way. But lots of focus on a small number of protests.
Then the far right painted the left as being intolerant, and mainstream journalists focused on the specific rather than the holistic.
So anyway, the free speech of the left is not the free speech of the right. 50 years ago we pretty much all agreed that Nazism was bad, wrong, unacceptable. In all but name it is back with many powerful adherents. But there are other flavors of fascism focused on the same objectives. There is a lot of money behind their “free” speech. And they are happy to use violence, hate speech, lies, to achieve their goals. It’s been 30 years since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, 7 since McConnell torpedoed Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court. 21 since GWB invented Free Speech Zones and gave his Axis of Evil speech. 2 since the attempted overthrow of the USA. Free Speech is a farce in our society and old folks who failed to save free speech blaming college kids working their hardest to save some semblance of it is like watching the Gunsmoke all day.
So long Free Speech,
Let’s forget you didn’t show,
Not in our time.
But in our son’s and daughter’s time
When you get the feeling, call and you’ve got a room.
I do think the state-ordered banning of books is worse than the efforts on the left, frequently on college campuses, to enforce codes of acceptable speech. I also do think the intolerance of viewpoints other than leftist orthodoxy in certain environments (some college campuses) is real. I also do think you and I are showing how this works -- I recall examples that fit the pattern I'm condemning, you recall examples that fit your condemned pattern.
It is the finding of examples part that is the problem. Simply stated “free speech” as conceived by many is failing us and has been failing us since the dawn of record. There is a reason for the admonition against bearing false witness because false witness is a theft. But we use examples to show that our point in an argument has validity in the real world. Unfortunately real examples are poor substitutes for the complexity of reality so each becomes in some small measure a bearing of false witness against ourselves and an opportunity for others to bear false witness against us. I use a lyric because I think examples are better read as “poems.” We are taught to hold certain values sacrosanct, professional journalists more so than most of the rest of us. But the reality is high ideals have never stood even for a moment against the reality of human nature. The ideal of free speech is like hanging a $100 bill from your back pocket in a room full of pickpockets. And if you try to grab the bill back from the pickpocket’s hand everyone shouts “assault!” More ‘free speech” does not correct the problem of bad free speech. The Urukagina shows that the powerful have always been happy to take from widows and children. The Persians overthrew Greek Tyrants and forced their own democracy back on the defeated Greek cities. College campuses are not bereft of fascist speech or libertarian greed speech. Those students have that shoved decades deep into their lives and if they fight back I’m on their side. Truth is more than sets of facts.
Some background. All libraries, school, public, academic, have a selection policy which is a rigorous process by which any and all items added to the collection are judged by the professional librarians on staff. The budget is never generous enough to purchase anything frivolous. In school libraries, such things as curriculum alignment, robustness of collection, popularity and even strength of binding and paper quality are but a few of the considerations of any purchase. Remember your local librarians are part of your community and have the best interest of ALL patrons in mind when deciding upon acquisitions.
Banning books , to me, is even scarier than the idea of another major war. I love that bookstores and Libraries are setting up special displays of those books and encourage everyone to read them - teens, parents, school board members etc etc .
If parents are that concerned about their children's reading materials, they should read the books themselves and then have a conversation with their kids. I remember some of my 9-year-old students reading The Hunger Games, and I spoke to the parents about the graphic violence in them. Not one had read the books. All decided to put them aside until their kids were older. While I felt they were not developmentally appropriate for that age group, it was still up to their parents. Now we have parents/legislators looking to remove books they haven't even read from shelves . Literature is vital to learning, and reading what our kids are reading can be a learning experience in itself.
And more so, these prejudiced parents (and politicians) are trying to keep some books away from ALL children, not just their own. That is wrong.
Good article! BTW, hooray for the Governor putting so much money into our schools which needed a lot of revamping due to Covid.
Hopefully the Republican war on books will only make them more appealing. I’m sure DeSantis won’t be averse to actual book burnings like his fascist forefathers engaged in.
Excellent article Will!
Hi Will Prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Would you agree or disagree with the preceding definition?
You may have heard of BlackLivesMatter an organization “founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer.” The quote is from their website www.blacklivesmatter.com/about/
What’s the number of blacks vs whites killed by cops www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
What dose BlackLivesMatter do with the money they raise? www.blacklivesmatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/blmgnf-tc-form-990-2020-2021-01.pdf
How about those parents who don’t want their children in arms reach of such reading material?
We all have closed minds; I’ll be yours is too.
Huh?
Unsure about the feeling or is something else? Did you follow the links and look around?
No. They have nothing to do with the topic.
How do you know if you did not go and look?
This is a post about book bans, not BLM. If you can list books about BLM and valid reasons why they ought to be banned (I fully expect you to have read them first as well) then you’ll be on topic, otherwise your whataboutism is just nonsense with a healthy heaping of racism.
Hi Rachel, your point is well made, and I have a new word to play with “whataboutism”. Although would you care to explain the “healthy heaping of racism”
No, we do not all have closed minds.
Point taken, how could I tell if it was my mind that was closed or perhaps the other person's? It must be my mind, I’ve already so.
You continue to maintain a false equivalence on objectionable speech: “ Not long ago, a large fuss was made about censorship on college campuses, after conservative speakers were shouted down by disapproving students. Some talks were canceled by spineless college administrators.”
The speakers who were shouted down were not simply “conservative speakers,” they were white nationalists and people of that ilk, people who spread hate speech. And colleges around the country were paying them with student fees - money collected from each enrolled student. It was a neat grift, the people who brought us things like the Unite the Right Rally in Charleston, and were motivational for many in the J6 insurrection were making a tidy living on the college speaker circuit.
I believe in free speech, but hate speech is not free speech and colleges should not have been paying people who spread hate.
I don’t think there is an analogous demagogue currently on the left.
Before you say troll. What Box would you place Ben Shapiro in? If you are unaware of who he is, Google him. Or go to YouTube and you can hear him speak. Now, you can say troll.
Well, that is a classic troll move, ignoring the gist of my post.
Mike the “gist” of your agreement is not all speech is or should be allotted the protection of the second Amendment. Yes, no?
The following is from Will’s article “Not long ago, a large fuss was made about censorship on college campuses, after conservative speakers….” He does not say who they are by name only they are conservative speakers.
The following are your words “The speakers who were shouted down were not simply “conservative speakers,” they were white nationalists and people of that ilk, people who spread hate speech.” Here you make the claim they were white nationalists who spread hate speech and infer that’s why they were shouted down by disapproving students. Yes, no?
Ben Shapiro is an American attorney, businessman, author, columnist, conservative political commentator, and media personality. He is by no stretch of the imagination a white nationalist, and one of the conservative speakers Will writes about, but does give a name too. Therefore, your assumption that the speakers shouted down were more than conservative speakers is not the whole truth. Again, he is by no stretch of the imagination a white nationalist Google him, better yet go to YouTube and hear him speak.
Since you keep referring to me as a troll, how did you come about the knowledge of a “classic troll move”??
You were the one who came out of the gate talking about trolling. You didn’t make note of my correction in my response to Will’s comment. And the gist of my post is that the idea that more free speech from “both sides” is failing us. Our “God given” rights are twisted to the detriment of society.
Mike, you hand me worried for a minute! I looked thru this whole thread and couldn’t find anywhere you had called me a Troll. Then I realized I was looking in the wrong place. Found it https://kentingley.substack.com/p/what-did-stefanik-know-about-santos scroll down to Jan 20 and there it is. Your replay to me, “Goodbye troll.”
So I guess the lesson here is that I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in a new situation.
Mike you right, I failed to take note. So, I took another look around and found something new in this little world.
I see music speaks to you, sometimes me too. Joe Strummer’s lyrics, what song are they from? I like Rush, the sound, the lyrics. The sound pulled me in, and the lyrics gave me something to contemplate. The following link is to Rush-Nobody's Hero with lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZokLZV35MI it’s a sad song and it tugs at the soul.
But I never mentioned white nationalists. Of course, I'm not going to defend white nationalists. But the squelching of speech on college campuses -- by students -- goes far beyond white nationalists. I was thinking in particular of the refusal of students at universities to allow speakers who voice support for Israel. Surely, this is not an issue as black-and-white as white nationalism. Here is a link to a story about UC Berkely law school banning pro-Israel, pro-Zionism speakers: https://tinyurl.com/3nwd2kfp
The anti-Defamation League issued a whole report on anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activity on college campuses, most of it done in the name of support for Palestinians: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/anti-israel-activism-us-campuses-2021-2022
I don't object to support for Palestinians, but I do object to using that cause as justification for the suspension of certain Americans' free speech rights.
Yes, I should have noted “some of” the speakers…
But the problem was much more subtle and far ranging. For example, the conservative club that formed at RPI. They attacked the management of the campus radio station which had a variety of alternative shows, many of them local. Once those were gone the conservative club had no interest in running the station, doing the work that was being done by people whose “liberal” opinions they opposed. They just broke it and walked away.
That sort of thing was happening at campuses around the country. But not widely reported or reported in any systematic way. But lots of focus on a small number of protests.
Then the far right painted the left as being intolerant, and mainstream journalists focused on the specific rather than the holistic.
So anyway, the free speech of the left is not the free speech of the right. 50 years ago we pretty much all agreed that Nazism was bad, wrong, unacceptable. In all but name it is back with many powerful adherents. But there are other flavors of fascism focused on the same objectives. There is a lot of money behind their “free” speech. And they are happy to use violence, hate speech, lies, to achieve their goals. It’s been 30 years since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, 7 since McConnell torpedoed Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court. 21 since GWB invented Free Speech Zones and gave his Axis of Evil speech. 2 since the attempted overthrow of the USA. Free Speech is a farce in our society and old folks who failed to save free speech blaming college kids working their hardest to save some semblance of it is like watching the Gunsmoke all day.
So long Free Speech,
Let’s forget you didn’t show,
Not in our time.
But in our son’s and daughter’s time
When you get the feeling, call and you’ve got a room.
(Apologies to Joe Strummer)
I do think the state-ordered banning of books is worse than the efforts on the left, frequently on college campuses, to enforce codes of acceptable speech. I also do think the intolerance of viewpoints other than leftist orthodoxy in certain environments (some college campuses) is real. I also do think you and I are showing how this works -- I recall examples that fit the pattern I'm condemning, you recall examples that fit your condemned pattern.
Although I do not, alas, back up my argument with adapted lyrics from The Clash.
It is the finding of examples part that is the problem. Simply stated “free speech” as conceived by many is failing us and has been failing us since the dawn of record. There is a reason for the admonition against bearing false witness because false witness is a theft. But we use examples to show that our point in an argument has validity in the real world. Unfortunately real examples are poor substitutes for the complexity of reality so each becomes in some small measure a bearing of false witness against ourselves and an opportunity for others to bear false witness against us. I use a lyric because I think examples are better read as “poems.” We are taught to hold certain values sacrosanct, professional journalists more so than most of the rest of us. But the reality is high ideals have never stood even for a moment against the reality of human nature. The ideal of free speech is like hanging a $100 bill from your back pocket in a room full of pickpockets. And if you try to grab the bill back from the pickpocket’s hand everyone shouts “assault!” More ‘free speech” does not correct the problem of bad free speech. The Urukagina shows that the powerful have always been happy to take from widows and children. The Persians overthrew Greek Tyrants and forced their own democracy back on the defeated Greek cities. College campuses are not bereft of fascist speech or libertarian greed speech. Those students have that shoved decades deep into their lives and if they fight back I’m on their side. Truth is more than sets of facts.
Some background. All libraries, school, public, academic, have a selection policy which is a rigorous process by which any and all items added to the collection are judged by the professional librarians on staff. The budget is never generous enough to purchase anything frivolous. In school libraries, such things as curriculum alignment, robustness of collection, popularity and even strength of binding and paper quality are but a few of the considerations of any purchase. Remember your local librarians are part of your community and have the best interest of ALL patrons in mind when deciding upon acquisitions.