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quade 3
So it's seriously ok with you if, for instance, your "local board" was taken over by a group you didn't happen to agree with and decided that the books that explored views you'd be interested in or NEEDED information on was deemed "inappropriate" and therefore not just banned but the existed books would be BURNED?!?
Seriously?
Do you not see how that's a repeat of certain events in history that have proved time and again to be insane?
Seriously?
Do you not see how that's a repeat of certain events in history that have proved time and again to be insane?
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
JohnRich 4
QuoteSo if a person happens to be unfortunate enough to be born into the "wrong" community, they don't have access to book that the "local board" deems appropriate?
It's not like books are only available at the public library, and the library is like an armory, where the citizens must go only there to check them out. They can get any book they want from numerous other sources. They can go to different libraries, or bookstores, or order them online. Just because some of the most controversial stuff is not in the public library, does not constitute a restriction on reading that material.
QuoteI seriously doubt most gun owners would put up with "local boards" deciding what guns are or are not appropriate for what local community...
And if you want to make gun analogies, how about this one: "A well-organized library, being necessary to the education of a free society, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."
You seem to be arguing that this kind of language is appropriate and would give an absolute right to have everything available in your local library.
But at the same time, you also enjoy telling us gun guys that the 2nd Amendment is not absolute. We have all kinds of restrictions on what type of guns we can own, where we can carry them, where we can shoot them, how we can modify them, where we can buy them, and so on. And yes, local governments do sometimes have their own laws, contrary to higher political entities.
So why should books be different? Your books vs. guns analogy is showing some contradictions in your positions...
If only you defended the gun rights of people in places like D.C., Chicago, New York and San Francisco, as vigorously as you are defending their book rights!
quade 3
QuoteJust because some of the most controversial stuff is not in the public library, does not constitute a restriction on reading that material.
Except the book in question isn't controversial in anyone's mind except the jerk that filed the lawsuit.
BTW, thanks for admitting that you see guns as sex objects and the equivalent of hard core porn.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
The World's Most Boring Skydiver
billvon 2,426
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>They can get any book they want from numerous other sources.
So you'd be OK with banning any books about guns from your local library? They are arguably far more dangerous than books that use racial epithets.
So you'd be OK with banning any books about guns from your local library? They are arguably far more dangerous than books that use racial epithets.
mdrejhon 8
There will always be people who actually disagree: What about Nazi Germany feeding itself off such books back in the 30's and 40's? Certain books in those days, today would be considered in the gamut of 'racial epithets'. And, WWII - the rest is textbook history...QuoteSo you'd be OK with banning any books about guns from your local library? They are arguably far more dangerous than books that use racial epithets.
QuoteSo it's seriously ok with you if, for instance, your "local board" was taken over by a group you didn't happen to agree with and decided that the books that explored views you'd be interested in or NEEDED information on was deemed "inappropriate" and therefore not just banned but the existed books would be BURNED?!?
Wow - quite the leap there. Tom and I talked about how libraries decide to spend their finite resources. That has nothing to do with book burning.
Since the money is limited, some interested parties have to decide what their priorities are. That would be the board, which is selected in some way by the local community. And to repeat, there is no Constitutional issue if they decide not to purchase books of interest to you.
Certainly you can come up with scenarios with inappropriate behavior. Extreme ones might be actionable from a rights standpoint. But most of the time, the recourse is to get the board replaced. Or go to http://amazon.com or http://google.
I've got the Kindle DX coming in a couple weeks and I'm looking forward to this technology - it will let me carry well over 1000 books in the size of a magazine, with a battery that allows me to read for days. And they have a quarter million books that can be acquired in 60 seconds. With the progress from digital ink and google trying to digitize every written word, we're not too far away from being able to avoid this problem entirely. In the shorter term, it still requires money, but in the longer term, perhaps not.
Erroll 49
Quote...describes premarital insect sex....
Absolutely shocking! Where will it end?
Quote
Community standards. Local people on the library board make the decisions that seem most appropriate for the majority of their community.
Which is kinda crappy. As far as I know, most - if not all - major changes in society were done against so-called "community standards".
* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *
jakee 1,257
QuoteIf parents want their kids to read the more ribald stuff, like a book about a teen homosexual, they can buy it for him, or check it out for him from an adult section.
Holy shit John, are you serious? A book that simply contains a homosexual main character is on the high end of 'ribald' for you? That's very sad.
BTW, the ALA maintains a list of the most challenged books available in public libraries, some of the most common are classics like Catcher, Huck Finn, Why the Caged Bird Sings, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird. In recent years things like the Dark Materials trilogy and The Kite Runner have been up there. You've got a hell of a lot to lose if these people start getting their way
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
Andy9o8 0
Quoteguns rights are part of the Constitution. Didn't see the clause about free access to anything printed in the library.
You really want to stand by that point?
The Second Amendment mentions "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The First Amendment mentions "... no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press."
I think if your point, the way you've framed it, were tested in most courts, you'd lose. Put another way, I think most intellectually honest courts that would interpret "arms" to include (among other things) "guns" would also interpret "freedom of the press" to include (among other things) "free access to books in the library."
jcd11235 0
QuoteReally? I'd say that knowledge of how to pilot an airliner killed 3000+ people 8 years ago.
Do you think Tom Clancy's Debt Of Honor should have been banned from public libraries?
Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!
TomAiello 25
QuoteQuote. . . --each community needs to be allowed to make their own determination.
So if a person happens to be unfortunate enough to be born into the "wrong" community, they don't have access to book that the "local board" deems appropriate?
The library board can't ban a book from the community. You can still go down to Barnes and Noble and order a copy, or just get on Amazon.
Your gun ban example would apply to the entire community. To make it a more accurate example, you'd have to say that gun owners would be forced to put up with not being allowed to carry in some public buildings. Guess what? That's exactly the way it works right now in virtually every courthouse in the nation.
An even more accurate analogy would be that citizens wouldn't be allowed to check machine guns out from the town armory for private use. But that falls apart on so many levels it becomes obviously silly.
TomAiello 25
QuoteQuote
Community standards. Local people on the library board make the decisions that seem most appropriate for the majority of their community.
Which is kinda crappy. As far as I know, most - if not all - major changes in society were done against so-called "community standards".
That's fine. Go make the changes somewhere other than the rooms my 3 year old plays in.
You want Jesus to live your kids alone, right? So do I. But I'd also like for community activists of other varieties to leave my kids alone.
Point is: the mission of the library is to be accessible to the largest segment of the community possible. Allowing unrestricted access to fringe material scares away a large portion of the intended users, even if it brings in a small number of other people. That hurts the library's mission.
rehmwa 2
QuoteJust reading a book never killed anyone.
I beg to differ -
Der Name Der Rose (after the book)
(Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Ron Perlman)
though one could counter that reading the book didn't kill the man, licking the book or eating the pages did.....
And there were those 2 'decoy' books in Army of Darkness that looked quite capable of killing someone - or at least sucking them into an alternate dimension
...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants
skybill 19
Hi Andy,
I can only wonder what Frank Zappa would have to say about all this????????
"What is the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose,
Some say your toes,
but I think it's your MIND!!!!"
(From an old Frank Zappa album)
I can only wonder what Frank Zappa would have to say about all this????????
"What is the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose,
Some say your toes,
but I think it's your MIND!!!!"
(From an old Frank Zappa album)
SCR-2034, SCS-680
III%,
Deli-out
III%,
Deli-out
tkhayes 140
And this is why every day, I move farther and farther away from the right-wing Christian nut-jobs.....
Conservatives in this country need to chill and get a life. Lots of 'free countries' show titties on TV, sell various materials in all kinds of stores, and very limited censorship rules (compared to ours), and I really doubt that their numbers of nigger-hating, man-boy-lovin', perverted serial murderin', flyin' airplanes into buildings numbers are any different than ours.
Apply the censorship and nothing will actually change.....
Conservatives in this country need to chill and get a life. Lots of 'free countries' show titties on TV, sell various materials in all kinds of stores, and very limited censorship rules (compared to ours), and I really doubt that their numbers of nigger-hating, man-boy-lovin', perverted serial murderin', flyin' airplanes into buildings numbers are any different than ours.
Apply the censorship and nothing will actually change.....
QuoteQuoteguns rights are part of the Constitution. Didn't see the clause about free access to anything printed in the library.
You really want to stand by that point?
The Second Amendment mentions "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The First Amendment mentions "... no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press."
Sure, I'll rephrase it.
The right to free speech and press does not mean that anything ever printed will be available in your public library.
Andy9o8 0
QuoteQuoteQuoteguns rights are part of the Constitution. Didn't see the clause about free access to anything printed in the library.
You really want to stand by that point?
The Second Amendment mentions "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The First Amendment mentions "... no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press."
Sure, I'll rephrase it.
The right to free speech and press does not mean that anything ever printed will be available in your public library.
True, but I would argue that it does mean that, as a default position, anything a library wants to stock and/or make available, it may do so.
QuoteQuote
The right to free speech and press does not mean that anything ever printed will be available in your public library.
True, but I would argue that it does mean that, as a default position, anything a library wants to stock and/or make available, it may do so.
Yep. and the problem is?
from the nutso Christian perspective, the problem is with stock they don't want seen.
from a rights perspective, the problem is with stock that they do want seen, isn't available.
But by and large neither concern has anything to do with the 1st Amendment. Though it's silly to remove Huck Finn, it's not your right to be able to check it out from a library. Nor is stocking books on religion or philosophy a violation of the separation of church and state.
Quote
That's fine. Go make the changes somewhere other than the rooms my 3 year old plays in.
You want Jesus to live your kids alone, right? So do I. But I'd also like for community activists of other varieties to leave my kids alone.
I don't get it. Are the community activists bring those books to your kid's room? We're talking about public library which simply makes content available, and is no different in this case from TV or Internet. You're already filtering what your kids could watch on TV or DVD. You're filtering the web sites they could visit. You can also filter what books YOU consider inappropriate to your kids, and I can (and do) filter what I consider appropriate for my kids. And I do not want someone else to make this choice for me.
Quote
Allowing unrestricted access to fringe material scares away a large portion of the intended users, even if it brings in a small number of other people.
I do not understand how a book staying somewhere on a shelf could scare away a reasonable adult person. Likewise a bunch of Christian books in my public library do not scare me away, even though I would not let my kids to read any of them. However I would not go so far to insist they need to be removed from the library, even though I consider them totally inappropriate for kids.
* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *
Andy9o8 0
QuoteThough it's silly to remove Huck Finn, it's not your right to be able to check it out from a library.
If it's a public library, it IS my right to check it out if it's in stock, and it's the library's right to stock it. It is NOT anyone else's right to get the book removed because they find the book offensive, or because they find my unfettered access to the book offensive.
And neither do guns. It's what someone decides to do with it.
We can play such lame games forever. But we won't until you find the part in the Constitution about libraries. But just a hint - the 'free' in free press didn't mean no money is needed.
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