There’s a big difference between a children’s book dealing with homosexuality and gay porn. Like it or not, you don’t get to decide what’s best for everyone. If we can ban a children’s book that deals with a legitimate issue, then why shouldn’t we be able to ban a children’s book dealing with Christianity? If you want your rights protected, then you have to protect EVERYONE’s rights.

Firing a librarian over a book you don’t like is a little too 1984 for me. You guys talk about Obama like he’s practicing information control. Banning books is straight out of Orwell! Once we lose our intellectual freedom, we’re no longer America.

I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think anyone should stand in the way of intellectual freedom. There will always be plenty of conservative activists who want to be the morality police. Do you really want that? What if you like drinking a beer while watching football (nothing against football), but the morality police decide alcohol is sinful? They lobby the mayor, the mayor (bending to the will of the vocal minority) bans beer. According to you, she’s just doing her job.

From what you’re saying, the guy who signs the pay checks makes the decisions. How is that different from a dictatorship? Contrary to what most people think, it’s usually not just a “librarian”, but a team of skilled library scientists who select a broad range of books on a broad range of topics. It’s not a rogue liberal activist trying to force gayness on our children – it’s a number of people buying books for a variety of reasons.

Personally, I say anything that isn’t solely of prurient interest (i.e. pornography) should be allowed in our libraries. That goes for the Bible, the communist manifesto, the Da Vinci Code (yes – even crappy, pop fiction), everything. People that don’t agree with communism don’t get to keep us from reading Marx, just as people that don’t agree with Christianity don’t get to keep me from reading the Bible. Of course, if you’re checking the Bible out at the *library*, that’s a whole other issue

If I think a graphic homo porno book should not be out open on display, and tell you to make sure that doesn’t happen, and you defy me, I’ll 86 you so fast, you’ll go through the revolving door twice.

Mayor Palin asked during a public interview if the librarian would remove a book if Palin asked. The librarian said , no. A few weeks later, she was canned. She was later re-hired, after she learned who was boss.

Thats’s how government gets reformed, by bureaucrats and others learning who’s boss. Palin was being responsive to the people who elected her. She heard their complaints, investigated, and laid down the law.

That’s my take from the info available. You have a problem with that approach, or do you still think the librarian should have absolute, unchallenged authority?

Try to understand what I’m saying. The government provides infrastructure, financial support, and basic management. Beyond that, it should not be up to them what the library chooses to include. Looks like the small town common sense has taken a leave of absence. Or maybe it just moved to the big evil city and is now voting democratic.

Yeah, don’t let the government touch all those government run libraries!

That’s the ticket

I appreciate your response, but I have to disagree. I don’t think the libraries should have to justify anything in regards to what books they select. They should be above politics. Sure, they get money from the state, but since no single tax payer can know everything about every book, why don’t we leave it up to the experts? The people with graduate degrees in library science – the people whose job it is to buy a quality collection of books?

All I’m arguing for is what conservatives want – keep the government’s hands out of our business. Don’t let them touch our libraries.

Jerry: Talking points? Please. That’s an easy response to any post that you deem “liberal”. Personally, I haven’t heard much about this book banning in the news. These are my opinions as a free citizen of the USA.

And about totalitarianism – who is the one calling for freedom and who is the one trying to take it away? If Palin was really about freedom, she wouldn’t try to ban books. And no, it hasn’t been debunked. She tried to get a children’s book banned because it dealt with homosexuality.

Keep up the talking points even though it has been debunked. Do you just come here to repeat the lie or do you really believe it.

Obama is more likely to crack down on dissent. His surrogates in Missouri have already threaten to bring down the law on those who disagree with one.

Once again Obama-istas engage in projecting their own totalitarian impulses on others.

Each choice of a book to buy with valuable (and limited) public funds is in fact a political decision. When you spend public money, the public has a right to make decisions on the spending. In a representative democracy, that means oversight by elected officials. The reality is that libraries are given funds, and the books are chosen by the librarians with no oversight other than possible complaints by citizens.

Ideally, a public library should attempt to balance books that have an obvious political bias. It’s very complicated, though. How many slightly conservative books equal one Michael Moore screed? Do you weight them on the number of pages or words?

The same can be said of public radio and public television. Both are clearly liberal in their editorial bias, there is no question. My local university radio station plays NPR (I listen daily), and even total moonbat screeds like Democracy Now! They have no “equal time” for right wing screeds to balance DN!, and no Fox News radio to balance NPR. It is completely one-sided.

That’s why I personally believe that public broadcasting should get zero tax money, and the more I think of it, the more I think that libraries either need to go the same way, or have bipartisan acquisition committees.