Has book banning ever been the right move?

Actually, I was half-wondering if fd understood what the recipes in the Anacrchists Cookbook were for.

I think it’s a pretty good example of a book that probably doesn’t belong in a K-12 school library, and which might be kept “behind the counter” in other libraries (accessible upon request).

I said that the PARENTS are to watch their children.

Again, whose job is it to parent? If you think it is the government’s job, well, we’ll have to create a new thread.

I’m not in favor of an amendment to protect my kids’ ability to do anything regardless of what I say, though.

Got it - I misread your post.

But chaining your kids to your wrist 24/7 isn’t much in the way of parenting, either.

It’s hard to ban a book if it is never purchased or donated to a library. Trouble comes when the book is already there, possibly has been there for a long time, but some parents concerned about other parents’ children decide that the book is no longer welcome in said library.

And that’s why I said in the beginning that the term banning is effectively semantics. What’s the difference between a library banning a book and it refusing to add a book to its collection? Either case is banning, even if it isn’t actively removing an existing book (which also happens all the time for all sorts of reasons).

Yeah, but the alternative is that one’s kids might learn something the parent doesn’t want them to learn? And instead of placing blame on themselves for not being good parents, let’s blame the library for having the audacity of having books. Not like they’re letting the kids run off into a mine field, cross a busy street, or go pet a “never bit anyone” dog. All experiences are life lessons. AND THE PARENT NEEDS TO TEACH.

Well we shouldn’t force a library to carry all books, but I’m sure Amazon would be happy to sell it to me.

Which is great. All I said from the beginning was that not every book belongs in every library.

And I, personally, would say that books that create a literal danger to people who use them probably fall in that category.

If a book teaches that you can make a cool fog effect by mixing bleach and ammonia, is it better parenting to

  1. Try to teach my 12 year-old high school chemistry so he can recognize that it won’t do that, or
  2. Ask the library not to carry a book that has the potential to get a kid killed?
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Obviously.
I also know which one is easier. If there is anything that banned book series taught kids is that one is often faced with choosing what is easy versus what is right.

Mostly it seems performative. Like making teaching of CRT in elementary schools illegal when CRT isn’t even taught in those schools at all.

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Book banning is a great way to get people to read the books being banned. That’s the way I look at it. In the early 90’s when Congress was having hearings on gangster rap I was super curious about all these songs they didn’t want me listening to so I found ways to check every single one of them out.

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I remember once randomly finding a copy of Sherlocks Holmes on amazon with the Anarchist Cookbook printed on the opposite sides. Or something weird like that… It was maybe a decade ago, so it probably no longer exists.

Read it as a teen in the 70’s, as I recall not well written but generally accurate, no real specific memories about it. I believe the recipes are wrong criticism are actually about the anarchist parts not the explosives, but people like to think it’s dangerous because of the explosives.

This is why public libraries are so important to a democratic society. A repository of all knowledge good, bad, and indifferent providing access to all people protected by the government, and from government censure. Public libraries and the first amendment to the constitution one of the greatest assets of American society.

Jumping in…
The entire thread is. Treating the topic as binary. Either ban books or don’t.
The problem is actually way more difficult. I’m guessing that most parents want to have the ability to influence what their children read and when they are most likely to benefit from the experience.

But who makes this decision for my kids? Is it a librarian? Is it the school board? The governor? Any loud conclave of parents who disrupt a school board meeting. This is the hard part.

When you “ban” a book, that is equivalent to overriding another parents agency. That’s disquieting for me. If you don’t want your son to play football, fine. That’s a whole lot different than bannng football.

/backtolurkng

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sounds like you’re against banning things then

Let’s hear the answer to who gets the final call, and I’ll let you know if that is ok. Having.a handful of SJW parents ban Tom Sawyer" because “nigger” shows up throughout the book, seems strange to me, and I’d prefer not to ban the book on that basis. If you show up with a book “How to take your own life”, then let’s let skip that one in public school libraries, thanks.

Who decides, sir?

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Well, I’m specifically talking about the government banning books in the OP.

Not sure about other people.