When is banning books EVER "entirely appropriate"?

[chicagoexpat]

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."
--Benjamin Franklin, 1730

How do you get away with "downplaying" book banning? How is that EVER appropriate?

They figure you repeat the "big lie" long enough and the lie replaces the truth in the popular consciousness.

GOP campaign downplays Palin book-banning inquiry

Shortly after taking office in 1996 as mayor of Wasilla, a city of about 7,000 people, Palin asked the city’s head librarian about banning books. Later, the librarian was notified by Palin that she was being fired, although Palin backed off under pressure…

Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Thursday that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books. He said the questions, in the fall of 1996, were hypothetical and entirely appropriate...

Still, one longtime library staffer recalls that the run-in made everyone fear for their jobs.

"Mayor Palin gave us some terrible moments and some rather gut-wrenching moments, particularly when Mary Ellen said she was going to have to leave," said Cathy Petrie, who managed the children's collection at the time...

According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper, Emmons did not mince words when Palin asked her "how I would deal with her saying a book can't be in the library" on Oct. 28, 1996, in a week when the mayor had asked department heads for letters of resignation.

"She asked me if I would object to censorship, and I replied 'Yup'," Emmons told a reporter. "And I told her it would not be just me. This was a constitutional question, and the American Civil Liberties Union would get involved, too."

The Rev. Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in the nearby town of Palmer, said the church Palin and her family attended until 2002, the Wasilla Assembly of God, was pushing to remove his book from local bookstores.

Emmons told him that year that several copies of "Pastor I Am Gay" had disappeared from the library shelves, Bess said.

"Sarah brought pressure on the library about things she didn't like," Bess said. "To believe that my book was not targeted in this is a joke."

As I go on on this & other points in my blog (below)

[NC_Nurse]

1. She is one sick fucker.

[uponit7771]

2. EXACTLY!!! When is even the SUPOSITION a good thing?!?!

[jeff30997]

3. I'm pretty sure that...

She wouldn't ban Mein Kampf. :puke:

[ContinentalOp]

4. Oh man, so it wasn't just typical fundie book banning stuff,

it was a personal grudge between her church and a neighboring town's pastor? Nice.

[OmahaBlueDog]

5. Devils advocate: why do we still even need libraries?

It's not Ben Franklin's days when printing was expensive and available to the few. Books are more readily available than ever. Why are we paying tax payer money to allow:

a) for public computers to be maintained so internet porn can be viewed and kids can play on-line video games
b) so families can view movies without buying or renting them
c) so books with questionable and objectionable content can be purchased with taxpayer money and viewed by minors

You don't need libraries. You need to visit the Dell website, or to make a trip to Barnes and Noble. Then you can view, play, or read whatever the Hell you want.

OK... flame away!

[chicagoexpat]

6. Who needs book banning when we got such brilliant ideas ?

;-)

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. Sometimes, I enjoy channeling my evil side

[chicagoexpat]

12. Ur 2 hard on urself, "stupid" isn't always "evil", it just lets evil win

[ElboRuum]

13. Let me get my oxyacetylene torch out for this one.

Snick... snick... snick... fooooshhh. Now let me turn up the gas to a nice cutting flame.

Opposing advocacy: O8)

Libraries still exist to allow people who cannot afford computers or stock their own personal libraries from bookstores access to information and literature. Not everyone can afford even the cheapest Dells or books... think people on fixed incomes. The elderly, the poor, etc. And who wants to buy books all the time? Go to the library, check it out, read it, put it back. There is nothing more cost effective than that. But no. God forbid something good be (near) free in this country.

[OmahaBlueDog]

17. I could certainly see that if libraries were limited to reference materials

..books and videos promoting business and the useful arts possibly. I can't see promoting fiction and entertainment with taxpayer money. That is the job of movie theaters, book stores, and internet service providers.

As for the poor, if they have time to read, they have time to engage in gainful employment, dammit!

[Iris]

31. I've been going to the library all my life and have maybe used it for reference materials 15% of the

time. If fiction shouldn't be promoted with taxpayer money, should we also do away with museums?

[HardWorkingDem]

27. Libraries are needed for history...

I cringe when I hear people talk of the demise of books, newspapers and the printed word...

[Iris]

32. hmmm. tv has been around for a long time now yet we still have radio

I don't think books will ever be completely gone... not in our lifetime.

[Bryn]

29. I have bookstore on the River

Another name for Amazon.com. All kinds of books! Gardening, craft, new age, astrology, tarot, novels, Christian, children's books, pet care, cooking, spiritual stuff, etc. etc.. My bookstore is called "BelovedShaneBooks" named after my beloved 6 yr. old hearing/signal assistance dog named Shane that died from drug adversary last December due to her vet's grossly neglience. :(

[eshfemme]

8. Just bring up that fundies tried to ban Harry Potter in response.

Regardless of what you think of Harry Potter, it made lots of kids start reading a lot more. And fundies wanted to get rid of it because it "promoted witchcraft."

[ElboRuum]

14. No, worse. It promoted literacy.

[Cosmic Charlie]

9. even hypothesizing about book-banning should be off limits

[ElboRuum]

15. Oh-Oh, the advent of thoughtcrime?!?

[Cosmic Charlie]

20. really, thought crime? she did more than think it. she inquired about it with the Librarian 3 times

then she canned the librarian, only to be forced to rehire her by community outcry.

[ElboRuum]

23. I'm talking about you sunshine.

The idea that people should not be allowed to even entertain an idea is the definition of thoughtcrime as per Orwell's 1984.

[kayell]

10. In some peoples minds, whenever you're in the mood.

[kayell]

11. In some peoples minds, whenever you're in the mood.

Nazi book burning Berlin 1933

[redqueen]

16. Glad this isn't going away. (nt)

[XemaSab]

18. I think the only appropriate books to keep out of the library

are books like "The Anarchist's Cookbook" and other books that teach you how to kill people.

Sex? Drugs? Pictures of graphic violence, such as the Vietnam war?

All okay in my book.

[chicagoexpat]

19. That's a good book, u should check it out sometime -- if ur AGE APPROPRIATE

Age appropriate rules are NOT censorship

[XemaSab]

21. I've read it and I thought it was interesting

but I don't approve of it being made available for every shitty little asshole like every wanna-be Columbine killer or Tim McVeigh.

Killing people is not cool, and I don't think such books should be in the library.

[chicagoexpat]

22. And how do Repubs interpret EVER?

[AZBlue]

24. It's never appropriate.

I would even fight for the right for O'Lielly and Coulter's books to be available - book banning has no place in a democracy.

[Overseas]

25. The RNC wants to say "she just inquired" -- and only THREE TIMES !!

So now, when we talk about it we can say Palin asked about banning books from the library THREE TIMES.
Three times of the same librarian. The librarian answered the first time that she could not practice censorship. The Palin asked her the same question on two more occasions.

[margotb822]

26. Call on Palin to clarify her position on the 1st Amendment

Does she even understand it?

[Bubbha Jo]

28. There's a few religious textbooks I could do without

:freak:

[Iris]

30. Sure, me, too. But if someone else wants to read them, they should be available.

[kath]

33. More info on the book banning here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3995035&mesg_id=3995035

also more on her theocratic religious views.