Support for Book Bans Growing?
Reason magazine looks at recent polls asking whether people believe certain books should be banned. The percentage believing there should be has increased from 18% in 2011 to 28% more recently. That may not seem too bad as 28% is barely over a quarter of those surveyed, but the percentages get higher as some questions got more specific. I'll expect percentages to grow (at least in California) as we advance our totalitarian state.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:50 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
ignorance is bliss....
America has been getting increasingly conservative since the 1980s (or conservatives have been getting increasingly radical?). Things will quicken once all states move to privatized public education.
"Things will quicken once all states move to privatized public education."
lol
Well, hell. The bible is the only book we need, right?
More like increasing extreme at both ends of the spectrum.
Fred, sorry ahead of time for the long post, but this is really, really important.
This is the keystone that may help explain - if not to you, to others, why libertarianism is not honest with itself and is destined to be either a fringe third party while remaining the heart of the Republican most destructive economic free-market conservatives.
I knew as soon as I read this there was something up. There was a contradiction in your conclusions and in the way you and Reason presented this phenomena. It's not until the final paragraph you get the truth. If you read that paragraph, you'll understand that California is not in danger of going Totalitarian - Wyoming, Utah, Michigan are. It may feel like a totalitarian state to you b/c your views cannot be used to govern. I get that. But we are not becoming more totalitarian, we are becoming the opposite - more open, more diverse, more free. In short, we are becoming more small "d" democratic.
What you are feeling, along with many people like you is your own voice in society and thus your "freedom" is being diminished. I for one understand this is a problem, but the root of this problem isn't with liberals or statists, it's with money (and hate) running the party that should be speaking for your vision of society.
Go through that article, go through the examples, do they seem like liberals would be the ones requesting banishment?
"a full 71 percent expect librarians to keep age-inappropriate books out of the hands of students"
"60 percent think books containing explicit language should be kept from school bookshelves entirely"
"48 percent say the same about violent books" (This is a more of a liberal tendency)
"surveyed were also largely in favor of shielding students from books containing witchcraft or sorcery (44 percent), sexual activity (43 percent), drug or alcohol use (37 percent), and vampires (36 percent)"
"33 percent of Americans don't think school libraries should stock a copy of the Koran"
"29 percent want to keep out the Torah or Talmud
"13 percent would ban the bible'" (This is amazing, you and I probably agree on the faux victimization proselytized by the religious right and they should be confronted with this stat)
"quarter think students should be kept from any books that question the existence of a divine being"
"while about 20 percent want to keep out books discussing creationism"
^^^^all within school walls above^^^^^^
""the survey’s results would seem to show a rise in conservative attitudes toward censorship, especially in the context of school libraries."
"Republicans, meanwhile, were still almost twice as likely as others to believe some books should be banned completely, with 42 percent support, compared to 23 percent for Democrats and 22 percent for political independents."
"College graduates were somewhat less likely than those with a high-school education or less to support book bans (24 percent, versus 33 percent)."
Outside of banning books with explicit violence and books on creationism the above are generally based on conservative fears. As much as you like to confuse the situation with 4 dimensional graphs, you and/or conservatives and/or and Republicans share the same base. You are the same in this two party system and if you don't believe me, I made a chart based on empirical evidence - the 2014 election - to begin to document this. *
* https://democratichumboldtfirst.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/an-overview-of-local-endorsements/
When it comes down to it, in our binary political system, you, conservatives, Republicans, libertarians will be signing from the same hymnal. That's why in the good book that goes with that hymal the antagonist is always the same - the statist, the liberal, the Democrat. (yes, I acknowledge the similarity on the right, but they are not equivalent - please listen to 24 hrs of KINS on a weekday if you disagree)
But here is the point, your conclusion is exactly backwards. California will be the last state, in any real terms, to succumb to totalitarianism. That is a perfect example of the night-as-day populism that has lead to conservative thought disembarking from reality.
No, Fred, my libertarian friend and neighbor, we in California are in no danger of becoming a totalitarian state. We are a one-party state, which has it's own problems, but totalitarians, Democrats and liberals are not.
However, we on the left WOULD please ask you to please refrain from using "negro" in polite society, and we would like you to eat broccoli, and we will work to tax behavior that has costs to our commons such as smoking and gasoline and large sugary drinks. We will work to include choice in housing so people do have a choice to live in towns and suburbs, and we will work to "ban" intelligent design from science classes, but not from libraries (at least not this liberal). If you feel like any of that is totalitarian, please organize your neighbors and win an election to change the tide. To do this you will need more than 10% of the vote.
Democracy nor freedom means our country will be all things to all people. That is utopian.
One more thing... liberals will also be there fighting for our actual right to free speech, even when it doesn't meet the norms of society. Remember Occupy?
That isn't totalitarian, it only seems like it to those who have been disempowered by those they agree with most (Republican's with money) and they would rather disagree with liberals than those with money.
One more thing, liberals will fight for public education K through doctorate to increase the likelihood books are not banned. Did you catch that nugget? The higher the education level, the less receptive to banning books.
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