Ironic Effect of Efforts to Ban Books: Teenagers Form New Book Clubs to Read Them (cnn.com) 260
CNN reports on "an ironic effect" of efforts to remove books from libraries in America. "The more certain books are singled out, the more people want to read them."
And for some U.S. teenagers, "banned book clubs, recent book banning attempts have been a springboard for wider discussions around censorship." The Banned Book Club at Firefly Bookstore [started by 8th grader Joslyn Diffenbaugh] read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" as its first pick. While the satirical novella, which makes a pointed critique of totalitarianism, isn't one of the books currently being challenged in the US, it was banned in the Soviet Union until its fall and was rejected for publication in the UK during its wartime alliance with the USSR. And it faced challenges in Florida in the '80s for being "pro-communist." That history made for some thought-provoking conversations. "It taught a lot because it had references to different forms of government that maybe some adults didn't like their kids reading about, even though it was run by pigs," Diffenbaugh said. "I really thought it shouldn't have been banned for those reasons, or at all."
Teenagers at the Common Ground Teen Center in Washington, Pennsylvania, formed a banned book club soon after a Tennessee school district voted to remove "Maus" from an eighth grade curriculum. But while the graphic novel about the Holocaust was the catalyst for the club, says director Mary Jo Podgurski, the first title they chose to read was, fittingly, "Fahrenheit 451" — the 1953 dystopian novel about government censorship that itself has been challenged over the years. "Obviously this whole idea of taking away books that they wanted to read or that they thought they should read sparked a nerve in them," said Podgurski, an educator and counselor who oversees the Common Ground Teen Center....
Since reading "Fahrenheit 451," the club has also discussed "Animal Farm" and "1984," which has been challenged for its political themes and sexual content. So far, the young readers at the Common Ground Teen Center have been puzzled as to why those books were once deemed inappropriate. "I often wonder, do adults understand what kids have in their phones?" Podgurski said. "They have access to everything. Saying 'don't read this book' shows that you're not understanding teen culture. Young people have access to much information. What they need is an adult to help them process it."
And for some U.S. teenagers, "banned book clubs, recent book banning attempts have been a springboard for wider discussions around censorship." The Banned Book Club at Firefly Bookstore [started by 8th grader Joslyn Diffenbaugh] read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" as its first pick. While the satirical novella, which makes a pointed critique of totalitarianism, isn't one of the books currently being challenged in the US, it was banned in the Soviet Union until its fall and was rejected for publication in the UK during its wartime alliance with the USSR. And it faced challenges in Florida in the '80s for being "pro-communist." That history made for some thought-provoking conversations. "It taught a lot because it had references to different forms of government that maybe some adults didn't like their kids reading about, even though it was run by pigs," Diffenbaugh said. "I really thought it shouldn't have been banned for those reasons, or at all."
Teenagers at the Common Ground Teen Center in Washington, Pennsylvania, formed a banned book club soon after a Tennessee school district voted to remove "Maus" from an eighth grade curriculum. But while the graphic novel about the Holocaust was the catalyst for the club, says director Mary Jo Podgurski, the first title they chose to read was, fittingly, "Fahrenheit 451" — the 1953 dystopian novel about government censorship that itself has been challenged over the years. "Obviously this whole idea of taking away books that they wanted to read or that they thought they should read sparked a nerve in them," said Podgurski, an educator and counselor who oversees the Common Ground Teen Center....
Since reading "Fahrenheit 451," the club has also discussed "Animal Farm" and "1984," which has been challenged for its political themes and sexual content. So far, the young readers at the Common Ground Teen Center have been puzzled as to why those books were once deemed inappropriate. "I often wonder, do adults understand what kids have in their phones?" Podgurski said. "They have access to everything. Saying 'don't read this book' shows that you're not understanding teen culture. Young people have access to much information. What they need is an adult to help them process it."
Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:4, Funny)
I don't remember having music albums available for borrowing in my school library.
But boy, what a sneaky way to get kids to read books :)
Re:Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember having music albums available for borrowing in my school library.
But boy, what a sneaky way to get kids to read books :)
My wife when she was a teacher posted a list of the currently banned books (banned by the school board or state for the schools in the district) on the classroom wall for the children to see. A book being banned is great motivation to get kids to read.
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And for those of them that have the time to pursue that outside of school, great. Their parents may be undermined by society at large, social media, and the interwebs, but government schools shouldn't be a place where parental prerogatives are taken lightly.
Re:Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:4, Insightful)
I would not want local school districts to be subject to the whims of an insane subset of society who have decided that the sky is falling because of some trans kids and some history textbooks, that is for sure
Re:Explicit lyrics warning stickers again (Score:4, Insightful)
the goal of banning (Score:5, Insightful)
the goal of banning is reducing fraction of people who will read the book.
For every non-conformist book club of 10 people you report there is a disappearance of 1000 people who would have read the uncensored book
Media, as usual, focuses on 1% of population because it's interesting and entertaining for people.
I am all for quality entertainment, but do not let the light reading cloud your judgment about reality.
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the goal of banning is reducing fraction of people who will read the book.
For every non-conformist book club of 10 people you report there is a disappearance of 1000 people who would have read the uncensored book
Media, as usual, focuses on 1% of population because it's interesting and entertaining for people.
I am all for quality entertainment, but do not let the light reading cloud your judgment about reality.
Do you have actual data showing this? I know when Texas banned a book on the Alamo it actually made me aware of the book and I ended up purchasing it. I never would have done so if it weren't for the effort to ban it. My story is also anecdotal, but I'm curious if you have anything to backup your statement.
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Re:the goal of banning (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:the goal of banning (Score:4, Insightful)
the goal of banning is reducing fraction of people who will read the book.
For every non-conformist book club of 10 people you report there is a disappearance of 1000 people who would have read the uncensored book
Media, as usual, focuses on 1% of population because it's interesting and entertaining for people.
I am all for quality entertainment, but do not let the light reading cloud your judgment about reality.
Do you have actual data showing this? I know when Texas banned a book on the Alamo it actually made me aware of the book and I ended up purchasing it. I never would have done so if it weren't for the effort to ban it. My story is also anecdotal, but I'm curious if you have anything to backup your statement.
It was well known that the Catholic church banning books was an impetus for Catholics to buy and read the books. It was a secret all over town.
Did Texas ban sales of the offending book for the entire state, or just schools? I'm assuming just school.
Anyhow, the abysmally braindead idea of banning books, especially for school kids, always backfires in the end.
I grew up in a town that had some pretty strict rules. Nothing could be taught that had any reference to evolution, or even the actual age of the earth. Sex education was 1 day of being told that if you had sex, you would get VD and probably die. I'm not kidding.
Then college happened. I discovered the world of reality not tainted by religion. I eventually decided a god who demanded lies and couldn't withstand reality, and demanded that procreation was inherently evil - was no god at all, just a prop for people who wanted to control others.
There were similar issues when a few of the creationist states attempted to eliminate evolution from their dogma of allowable teaching quite a few years back to institute a welding of church and state. So Texas and all the other states that are too weak to have anything but their own doctrine are just igniting curiosity in the intelligent.
The books will be read, and the people reading them will quickly understand that banning was the result of weakness trying to perpetuate weakness.
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Many publishers advertise the bans.
Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was advertised as "So funny it was banned in Norway."
In America, "Banned in Boston" was often displayed in advertising to show that a film or play was edgy and cool. Often, some gratuitous nudity or profanity would be written into the script just to ensure a ban.
Banned in Boston [wikipedia.org]
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It was banned in one seaside Welsh town until 2009.
Re: the goal of banning (Score:2)
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Re:the goal of banning (Score:5, Informative)
In Texas public schools, 7th grade includes a Texas history class. It's the definition of the winners getting to write history. As one example, the class teaches that the revolution was a reaction to authoritarian rule by Santa Anna. They leave out all the parts where Mexico had made slavery illegal and wanted to enforce that in Texas, while the Texians just want to keep their slaves because that was the only way most of their farming enterprises would be economically feasible. Texians raged against the Mexicans taking their "property", aka slaves. After the revolution, their new constitution enshrined the institution of slavery. This is yet another reason current Texans and southerners in general want schools to teach their whitwashed versions of history, not the real thing.
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Knowledge longs to be known
Just as chaos longs to become order
It's intrinsic to to the nature of organics to organize and learn.
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Well nicely worded and all by I'm afraid Mr Entropy disagrees as does Mr Anthropomorphism.
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The point isn't banning the books (Score:2, Flamebait)
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So the Democrats are shipping Americans' jobs overseas? Those nice corporations are somehow run by Democrats who we've been told do not believe in free enterprise. So how can they successfully run corporations that somehow do well enough to have jobs that can be shipped overseas?
Anyhow, last we heard from the Dems, airheads like Bernie and Warren wanted to tax the hell out of corporations.
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And those tariffs have contributed to inflation. Thanks for playing, got any other gems you've discovered?
Speaking of books that need banning.. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's one book that's often overlooked by the book banning bananas - there's all sorts of weird stuff about sex, tons of violence and supernatural insanity including this zombie guy who comes back from the dead - they really need to look into this book called 'The Bible', I'd fully support banning that one!
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It may be surprising to you, but if you ever do give the bible a read, you'll discover it's actually not that graphic about sex, violence, or the supernatural. You can actually cover topics without being graphic or prurient.
Watch "Three's Company" again when you get a chance - they're awfully risque, but they're not graphic...well, besides suzanne sommer's high beams.
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Genesis 19:33-36
And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him;
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Really? You consider that explicit? :)
I mean, okay, trying to explain killing people and taking off foreskins is going to take some tact, but nothing in those verses comes close to any sort of explicit sexual content.
Have you ever read Anne Rice? The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty? Or maybe Fifty Shades of Gray?
If anything in the bible strikes you as explicit, you're missing out on a whole world of kink out there :)
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It may be surprising to you, but if you ever do give the bible a read, you'll discover it's actually not that graphic about sex, violence, or the supernatural. You can actually cover topics without being graphic or prurient.
Watch "Three's Company" again when you get a chance - they're awfully risque, but they're not graphic...well, besides suzanne sommer's high beams.
Allow me - Genesis 19
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the sh
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Also, who would name their kids after places in Utah?
People who keep things in the family.
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You'll note the entire story of Lot and his daughters isn't explicit - you have to make a "modern translation" to get it there.
It's not that there's no sex in the bible, it's that there's no explicit sex. There's no "and then Lot's daughter took her mouth, put it on his shaft, stroked his testicles and licked his cock until it stood hard and straight". It's "she lay". That's about as tame as you can get.
The problem here is whether or not government employees should be able to discuss explicit sex with el
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I suppose you'll be happy to learn that under the definition of 'banning' here, the bible is banned in every public school curriculum in the country. And teachers are explicitly forbidden by the courts from introducing the ideas of its contents to students as fundamental truths.
Since you got what you want, what I want is for this to be extended to all ideologies demanding exclusive adherence to their internal worldviews. Because seems like as we've secularized we've opened a backdoor that allows essentiall
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And somehow mein kampf is not on that list at all?
They may be disappointed by Catcher... (Score:2)
I completely approve, but I hope they're not too disappointed by Catcher in the Rye. That book just sucks. Hated it even as an overdramatic teen, still hate it as an adult.
Seems Completely One-sided (Score:2)
we should have banned all the boring books (Score:2)
Ethan Frome, The Scarlet Letter, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Awakening, A Farewell to Arms, ... there's a lot of trash in classic literature. Most of it is so-called "American Literature". Which tends to cover a period of American history where people liked really god-awful stories.
I'm sure this isn't original (Score:2)
But anyone that wants to ban 1984, Animal Farm or Fahrenheit 451 either hasnâ(TM)t read them or didn't understand them. Given what I've seen of Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson and others of that ilk, either is very probable.
STREISAND EFFECT (Score:3)
Does America understand? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well... (Score:2)
...at least they are reading?
Although I, and any sane individual, should be troubled by that last line "...They just need an adult to help them interpret it."
Sure they do.
The proposed alternative is unlikely (Score:2)
What they need is an adult to help them process it
This can't work due to supply chain issues.
Re:Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:5, Insightful)
... These are books that are many decades old, not new-and-sexy stuff that pushes the current social boundary.
Re:Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:5, Insightful)
People blame the repubs(this time), but this is just normal. Check history, you will see it always happens.
Wonder how many republicans have read the bible? Now that book is full of vile and filth. Murder, incest, rape, torture, etc etc. But a book explaining why another child might have two dads is appalling?
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Re: Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:2)
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Any background on the "baldige" story? Can't recognise that one.
2 Kings 2:23-25 (NLT) -
Elisha left Jericho and went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, a group of boys from the town began mocking and making fun of him. “Go away, baldy!” they chanted. “Go away, baldy!” Elisha turned around and looked at them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of them. From there Elisha went to Mount Carmel and finally returned to Samaria.
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A story where God sends a bear or two to maul a crowd of children, some of whom had made fun of a bald man. The Christian defense is that the bald man was a very important prophet so the children were being sacrilegious, and and children were probably not so young and they were dangerous urban thugs and it's not clear they necessarily died in this bear attack anyway! You can't make this stuff up:
https://christianindex.org/sto... [christianindex.org]
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Having strong feelings about content is healthy and good
Re:Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you do not have children? A key part of parent's work is to form their children as good human beings, which includes inculcating solid values. Children do not have the depth of knowledge or experience necessary to parse good content from bad, and we the adults in the room are supposed to help them do this. It does not mean we shelter them or bubble-wrap them - it means we show them content and themes at the right age and in the right context.
But there is an entire spectrum of what is considered proper. I grew up in a town in Pennsylvania where prior to the mid 1970's textbooks were searched for anything that had anything to do with evolution. There wasn't even education about dinosaurs or radioactive decay. Sex education was a one day class with an admonition that you need to stay celibate and a virgin until marriage, and masturbation was a sin. This was in a normal sized little town, not a backwater. But it was controlled by the religious who believed they they had the way to instill good values.
And that kind of thing backfires. The college library turned me into a born again athiest, and gave me a deep seated mistrust of people who would control what others see.
Surely we don't want to have the kids see videos of mommy Sally and mommy June in hot lesbian sex. But to have no acknowledgement of anything other than sex for procreation in the framework of a blessed by God protestant marriage is more where some want to draw the line.
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I wouldn't want kids to see Sally engaging in hot straight sex with Joe in the classroom either, and they should not be showing graphic sex videos of any kind in the classroom.
And they don't need to. There are some basics that are involved, and a description will do.
But if nothing else, we need to make certain there is a way to keep young women from getting pregnant. Nothing wrecks a teenagers like better than becoming a single mother. The far left are trying to claim single mothers are hero's. They aren't. But men are not signing up raise other men's children. The consequences are not good.
But sex needs to be talked about and the reality there was always gay and straight sex throughout human history.
I think it was George Carlin who said " If God hates gays so much, why does he keep ma
Re: Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:2)
I agree with the first part of your post, i.e. tje statement of the problem.
However this:
Having strong feelings about content is healthy and good, especially if you are responsible for forming young minds./quote>
is partof the problem, not part of the solution. If the success of your mind forming depends on the kids not having access to specific content, then you failed.
Yes, I have kids. But this was an opinion that I already had before the kids, and didn't disappear. If anything, it strengthened.
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Funny, that's what the Jesuits always said: “Give me the child for the first seven years and I'll give you the man.”
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Usually because some liberal(and depending on history, that definition changes) decides to push the envelope of what is age appropriate to younger audiences.
That's not at all what happened this time, it was manufactured conservative outrage, unprovoked by any new content, that decided to purge books that had been available to kids for decades:
https://www.newyorker.com/news... [newyorker.com]
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Re:Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:5, Interesting)
The Democrats think they can "win" by forming book clubs and using informed counterarguments. But they are wrong. By engaging in the culture war, they have already lost.
It's worse than that, the Democrats hardly understand the stupid-ass culture war (understandable, as it is incredibly stupid) and don't really know when they're fighting it. They think they're fighting it when they fight back against these book bans, which is correct, and they think they're fighting it when they troll conservatives on the Internet. But when they pass a pro-LGBT law for example, they think that the other side just gracefully accepts that they were on the wrong side of history and quietly resigns from the issue. WRONG. THEY FUCKING SEETHE WITH ANGER. The democrats just dropped a nuclear bomb in the culture war and have no idea what they did, and they will be shocked by the ferocity of the retaliation. Another act Democrats don't think of as an act of culture war was electing a black President, but this was the culture-war equivalent of unleashing a Project Pluto/Burevestnik-type missile on the enemy, an atrocity so terrible it seems an understatement to consider it warfare. This is the act that turned most Republicans into raging bloodthirsty culture war berserkers avenging the nuclear-scorched earth of their cultural homeland, leading to the election of Trump. For Democrats it was a fairly ordinary election and they don't see what all the fuss was about.
Re: Every 10 to 15 years this repeats (Score:3)
You mean they dropped a bomb on opression caused by belief in the invisible magic sky daddy?
I used to be a devout Christian, studied the Bible from cover to cover, and came to the conclusion that if this "God" was real, every human being is fucked no matter what. Now I am not a Christian anymore.
Madlyn O Hare didn't take "God" away from me. The liberals didn't take "God" away from me. The Democrats didn't take "God" away from me. The Holy Bible did.
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This is about book banning of Animal Farm and Maus.
Animal Farm was banned 75 years ago in the USSR. It has never been banned in America.
Here is the website for the bannedbookclub [bannedbooksbookclub.com].
The books are about transgender teenagers [bannedbooksbookclub.com], Native American families [bannedbooksbookclub.com], and defunding the police [bannedbooksbookclub.com].
None of those books were banned by lefties.
Re:Age appropriate is age appropriate (Score:5, Interesting)
The caricature is that people are trying to ban books they don't like. The reality is that parents are rebelling against inappropriate sexual content in elementary and middle school libraries.
Bull. People are trying, and succeeding, to ban books which might make their white kids feel uncomfortable [cnn.com].
She's now in private school and misses public school. But Steenman is keeping her out not because of masks, but because of lesson plans she says make students feel bad about their race.
"The school bus goes right in front of my house and my kid is dying to ride it," she told CNN. "But not until I have deemed that the curriculum is safe and will do no harm."
Steenman is counting on a new Tennessee law to force schools to end that curriculum -- and ban at least one book in the elementary school library written from the perspective of Mexican Americans.
. . .
Three of the books, about the civil rights movement, are problematic for the way they're taught, she says. One is a children's book about the March on Washington written for young readers.
Two tell the story of Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old who integrated an elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. "Ruby Bridges Goes To School," written for elementary school students by Bridges herself, is fine for kids to read, Steenman says. But she says teachers should not be allowed to lead discussions of the pictures in the book -- one of which is the famous Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby, the US Marshals who had to protect her from an angry segregationist White crowd, and the ugly slur hurled at her by adults.
"There's no need to emphasize it," she says of the slur. "Just, you know, if they want to read 'this book has a famous painting,' fine. And then just move on."
Also from Tennessee [nytimes.com], the banning of Maus because it contains profanity and nudity. As if the kids reading it aren't exposed to the profanity of their parents every time the see a black person and by nudity it means a partially nude drawing of a mouse. You know, like Donal Duck not wearing pants.
Read what is being banned and listen to what is being said about the bannings and the vast majority revolve around banning the teaching of history. Gotta keep the kids stupid. Wouldn't want the snowflakes to learn the full story of this country or history in general.
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We have to make them strong and well-formed, and perhaps we can do that better by not exposing them to all
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So, we should have books that talk about how bad white people were in the 1950s, and how bad black people have been in the 2020s, and how bad the asians were in the 1100s?
Or maybe just have books that deal with the universal theme of human on human violence, without trying to attribute it to skin color or ancestry?
I mean, did DARE really tell you "hey, don't make the black kids angry, they commit interracial violence at a rate several times higher than any other racial group"?
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How about "people bad, and kids should learn this"?
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I agree. Put the bible at the top of that list. No child should ever be exposed to it's contents.
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Of course the LORD was the god of war, but let's be honest, the admonition wasn't to kill every brother, friend and neighbor - only the ones who refused to accept the responsibility laid upon them by the LORD. Yes, it's still violent, but context does matter.
As for what is taught and when it is taught, I guess the ultimate question is, who is in charge of deciding that - parents, or government employees?
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Is it the right of parents to put things in proper context to discuss morality, or is it the purview of government employees?
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Let's be clear then, they're trying to ban age inappropriate books from young children because they don't like young children being exposed to age inappropriate books.
There can be good reasons not to like things :)
Let's take a test here
Ban books that have anything other than creationism in them.
Ban or redact chemistry and biology books that might cast a shadow on the fact that the earth was created in 4004 b.c.e. or that might showhow to practice birth control.
Change sex education which was mandated by law to a one day course that demanded celibacy and virginity until marriage.
That's what the situation was in my town until a few years after I graduated in the 1970's.
This is the problem - and I can't even
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Again, the objection is to sexualizing young children, regardless of hetero or homo.
So, all of the problems you mentioned have been dealt with within our lifetimes so far.
Have things really gotten better for children? With all of this wokeness, we have more teen depression, suicide, violence, crime...about the only thing that has improved is the rate of teen pregnancy, but hey, give boys enough porn and they don't need women anymore.
Damaged adults, indeed.
I understand, parents can screw up, but so can gove
Re:Age appropriate is age appropriate (Score:5, Informative)
It's all political talking points designed to rile up the rubes, morons, and people who call others snowflakes. But let's take a look at banned books for 2020 and 2021.
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/b... [ala.org]
2020 is your typical mix and To Kill A Mockingbird is still there for some reason. Looks like one single book in 2020 was called out for talking about the gays.
Now look at the 2021 list and EVERY book is called out for LGBTQIA+ content. Did all the previous entries from 2020 evaporate overnight leaving only LGBTQIA+ content?
This is political propaganda to somehow equate being gay with grooming children. Nevermind that Boy Scouts went bankrupt paying out restitution for child molesting.
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Banning books is a fashion. What's fashionable to ban last year may not be on the list of talking points of things to ban next year.
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Can you be any more of an empty headed talking point? What are teachers supposed to say about a student with gay parents? Pretend they don’t exist?
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"Hey teacher, how come Johnny has two daddies?"
"Ask your parents, Billy."
Same thing when dealing with a student who has a mom with big tits.
"Hey teacher, how come Billy's mom has really big boobs?"
"Ask your parents, Johnny."
You don't have to pretend something doesn't exist in order to defer the conversation to the parents, rather than the government employee.
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Ask your parents Johnny. The party of small government and freedom have created a law forbidding me from discussing it under criminal penalty.
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The example given was "1984" which has pillow talk about government propaganda: A topic that excites every teenage schoolgirl, right! Another example is a mouse not wearing pants: In that case, all cartoons made before the 1980s plus Beatrix Potter books plus illustrated fairy tales, will have to be banned.
Most complaints deal with books demonstrating white people doing lots of shitty things. Most of these books have been popular since the 1950s, meaning the parents probably heard of them but white pe
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Where do you draw the line between sex-education, and grooming of elementary school students?
More importantly, should that line be drawn by parents, or government employees?
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No, the reality is that the school boards have been taken over by religious zealots who think it is their job to control society.
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That is one of the books that made me (and many like me) despise reading non-foreign literature.
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I guess you didn't understand what he meant by "Every child is different" :)
Some people have hangups about sex. Some people are so open about sex they can't imagine any rational or reasonable boundaries.
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And those hangups or lack thereof are caused by upbringing.
Fact is gay sex is a thing and sooner or later everyone will hear about it, perhaps even seeing or engaging in it. Hiding such things from kids will just result in them being naive when they eventually do encounter such things.
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That begs the question - who gets to decide when their child is exposed to sexually explicit material? Parents, or government employees?
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I was reading playboys at that age, but they didn't have them in school libraries :)
Now, if some adult was plying me with porn when I was age 12, that would've been grooming. The fact that I explored and found it on my own makes it different.
School libraries shouldn't be places for precocious children to find graphic sexual content. They can go ahead and use public libraries, or find their fix through google just like all the other precocious kids do :)
The insistence that we should have government employe
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Sadly though, it's legally accepted that the State does have an interest in making sure that its children have better than a 30% chance of hitting the national median income, so you backwards fuckers are going to have to l
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So, you seem to be in favor of forcing men to marry the mothers of their children, forcing people to finish high school, and forcing people to get jobs.
Or, maybe, let the parents decide on their own how to raise their children? Some parents will make good choices, some will make bad choices - but isn't it better for it to be their choice? Or are you willing to give your children up to the State?
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That's a pretty hefty does of mindreading :)
I'm not sure if you quite understand what I care about - it certainly isn't about censoring the atrocities done in the name of communism, or the misguided ideologies of race essentialism, or mutilating prepubescent children. What I care about is where the responsibility lies - is it in the hands of parents, or government employees?
Some people are more prudish than I am - and I respect them, and their choices for educating their children.
Some people are more kinky
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Ah, the "no, you're the groomer!" defense :)
Not sure if you have kids, but you can teach them the basics of "no-no" areas without delving into the details of sex. "If someone tries to touch you where you would wear a bathing suit, let mommy and daddy know." It's not helpful to show ten year olds giving each other blowjobs in cartoon format to keep children safe from groomers - it is actually exposing them to sexual content that is inappropriate for them.
I get it, both parents and government employees coul
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Who gets to choose the time and way the young are exposed to the realities of humanity and the real world?
The real world, obviously. The older children get the harder it is for parents to keep them from seeing it.
If you are that worried about your child experiencing reality you should really home school them anyway. It is a disservice to the vast majority of kids to dumb them all down to the lowest common denominator of parent.
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Government schools regularly dumb down everything to the lowest common denominator. Not dumbing things down, and insisting on judging students by skill and mastery is considered racist.
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Government schools regularly dumb down everything to the lowest common denominator. Not dumbing things down, and insisting on judging students by skill and mastery is considered racist.
People of color won't be responsible for your kids lack of skill and mastery. More likely it will be hereditary.
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That's an awfully racist thing to say to a person of color. You might want to check your unconscious bias :)
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That's what we've been trying to say, but government schools regularly insist that the only reason for differential outcomes is racism.
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Who gets to choose the time and way the young are exposed to the realities of humanity and the real world? On one side you have Government/Media Approved/Implemented/Mandated one size fits all. On the other side leave it up to the communities and parents.
If the community and parents decide that the only allowed book to teach from is the bible?
While I'm certain there are those who would think that should be mandated for everyone, it's a sure ticket to a nation that resembles some of those in the middle east.