Posted on 02/20/2022 2:06:40 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
In the ever-worsening culture wars, schools have emerged as a battlefront, with fierce arguments raging about the contents of curricula and propriety of particular books. Debating what literature and ideas to teach students is a mark of a healthy democratic society. But coming amid assaults on voting rights, protest rights and respect for dissent, these efforts to repress disfavored ideas and books must be recognized as part of a larger attack on democracy itself.
Book bans and curriculum debates in the United States have flared up episodically over time, as rattled communities have sought to pump the brakes on social change in areas including evolutionary science, sexuality and the embrace of ethnic differences. Although some of the arguments being made today — about protecting innocent students from corrupting ideas — echo traditional motives for book banning, the current crusade has a more sinister cast.
Some of the same institutions and funders fueling book and curriculum bans are mounting parallel, partisan efforts to curb assembly rights, make it more difficult for members of minority groups to vote, commandeer election administration and sow doubts about election integrity. It is all part of the work of a revanchist political movement bent on trampling civil liberties in order to gain and hold power. Organizers have hit upon bans as a potent tool to fire up suburban parents with an issue that affects their own kids’ bookbags.
The blitz on books and curricula is one flank in a wider onslaught on institutions and norms, aligned with part of our country’s resistance to the political and social implications that come with demographic and ideological shifts. Holding fast to democracy means holding fast to books, defending the judgment of teachers and librarians and vigorously upholding the rights to read and learn.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Not when it comes to our children. I’ll bet she’s front and center trying to cancel J K Rowling.
Banning is not the same as censoring.
Banning is a personal or communal issue. Many conservatives do not want certain materials in their schools or homes. The definition of “proper” reading material is subjective. Someone can write whatever he or she wants, but I as a parent or community member don’t have to read it, or expose my children to it.
Censoring, however, is far more widely employed by liberals, who will defend free speech as long as it is sufficiently woke. Anyone with a conservative view will be actively suppressed or persecuted. It’s not a question of “I’ll write what I want; if you don’t like it, don’t read it” — rather, “You are not allowed to write it at all.” An insidious double standard.
“In the ever-worsening culture wars”
NOW the culture wars are a bad thing.
We’re not a Democracy.
Say the biggest banners and censors.
This is an active propaganda operation. The “book banning” narrative is all over the place.
bet she’s ok with the Virginia librarian and his selection of books on display of two men having oral sex. These Cretans need to be jailed for child abuse
She mad about the Texas law banning homo books in school libraries. I think those books should be burned in the public square. Call me whatever name pleases you.
This too
A Texas Town Votes to End ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’
https://theminnesotasun.com/2019/09/05/a-texas-town-votes-to-end-drag-queen-story-hour/
Although they may mention it in passing, these people are quite comfortable with banning books like ‘Huckleberry Finn’ or ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, what they are really upset about is taking books like ‘Heather Has Two Mommies’ out of school libraries.
The phrase ‘our democracy’ has become a ‘tell’.
LOL... well I’m with you on that. I also want to see vagrancy laws brought back.
No doubt, and fully concurred with rejection of Trump’s Dr. Seuss books.
” our democracy”
Our what?
... and to the Republic, for which it stands
Banning porn in schools is a good thing. Banning CRT is a good thing. Banning the Bible is not a good thing. The more they scream, the more you know the correct target is being hit.
“Debating what literature and ideas to teach students is a mark of a healthy democratic society. [...] efforts to repress disfavored ideas and books must be recognized as part of a larger attack on democracy itself.”
It never ceases to impress me how leftists can completely contradict themselves from one sentence to the next without batting an eye.
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