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[...] Apparently, Congress thinks children are undoing zippers with their teeth. [...]

[...] PajamasXpress blogger Ed Driscoll’s latest “Silicon Graffiti” video explores the excesses of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which has wreaked havoc in the used book sellers’ market. Watch video here. [...]

I am so glad I bought a few used books from the used book store for my grandson. If I knew about this law I would have been buying a lot more books. AIg bonuses so important but banning books ok to quite a book printed before 1985 “what a world, what a world”

Just stamp the books “Intended For Adults Only” – problem solved.

Peace.

DS

This is very disturbing.

A company that we do business with sent out an e-mail last month assuring us that all their books were lead free. Since I had never given the slightest thought to lead in ink, and since I read book not eat them, I glanced at the e-mail and hurried on to whatever else I was doing without a second thought.

Who knows how many thousands of books were destroyed overnight! A horrifying realization, certainly, yet there is another troubling aspect. We often find children’s text books in second-hand bookstores and thrift stores. If these were wiped out overnight, how much more difficult will it become to compare traditional textbooks with the agenda-driven textbooks of the past couple of decades?

David, perhaps you don’t understand what has happened, but the books have already been discarded. With this administration in charge, would you want to put your little store at risk by ignoring their dictates?

While everybody was sidetracked with the Obama/Limbaugh circus the books were burning.

Any comment from those who accused Sarah Palin of burning books?

Books have been destroyed in the name of protecting the children.

Any comment?

Right.

Suppose the Nazis had organized their book burnings saying that they were only doing it “to protect the children”. Just run that one up the flagpole and see who salutes.

Remember, dear readers, that it is important to get the public to accept the initial idea by setting up a straw man and “saving” someone from it (children are probably the most popular props, although women and the elderly also have their uses). Once we accept the notion that the government can ban books (no matter the reason), then the powers that be can start their real work – getting rid of “racist” or “homophobic” or “obstructionist” ideas.

Think that I am over-reacting? Once we accepted the first trillion dollar “bailout” more and more bailouts followed with no sign of ending (the latest is an effort by the government to subsidize newspapers and magazines). A movie critical of Hillary Clinton was banned because of “campaign finance reform”, while records amounts were spent in the 2008 campaign. We had amnesty for an estimated 2 million illegals back in the 1980s because we were told that we had to legalize them in order to forever clear up the immigration mess (we now have between 12 and 20 illegal aliens). Social Security was originally sold to public as a retirement supplement, not a retirement system. Government-run health care promises affordable medical care, but those who have adopted it wind up with less care and a system so bad no one in their right mind would want (who do you think Canadians tired of waiting lists come to the US?). There are countless other example.

Of course the Obama administration wants to ban books. They are a Distraction from Real Issues.

David Byrne wants his coat back.

Anon,

Huh–I was sort of going for an “I Advance Masked”-era Robert Fripp look.

So I guess public libraries are going to need safe-boxes so that patrons can read old books using the attached gloves. And hazmat suits for the librarians so that they can retrieve these implements of destruction from safe-storage.

“Same as it ever was.”

David Byrne

Reminds me of the newly formed environmental groups of the late 50’s and early 60’s, who succeeded in getting DDT banned. They were so concerned about “the children” that they couldn’t see beyond their noses.

Our servicemen during WWII in the jungles of the South Pacific covered themselves with DDT to prevent almost certain death from malaria, saving tens of thousands of lives.

And how many hundreds of millions of people have died in the 50+ years since DDT was banned, many of them children in jungles around the world? It’s no wonder that the world community in 2006 has put DDT back where it belongs in the malaria-fighting arsenal.

If these environmental groups were so concerned with “the children”, why did they commit so many of them to such a cruel death?

Columns and stories like this are nearly useless. There are names at this agency who may be unelected bureaucrats but they are taking on the nation so we need to take them on. Where are their names?

Aloysiusmiller:

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA)was passed by Congress last summer after the panic over lead paint on toys from China. If you are looking for names, you are too late. It was the Democrat leadership who pushed this through in a panic, and we all know who their names are. It’s the law of unintended consequences from acting in haste, just like the DDT ban I referred to above.

“CPSIA’s major provisions went into effect on February 10. The day before, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published guidelines telling thrift stores, as well as other resellers and distributors of used goods, what they could safely keep selling and what they should consider rejecting or subjecting to (expensive) lead testing. Confirming earlier reports, the document advised that only “ordinary” children’s books (that is, made entirely of paper, with no toylike plastic or metal elements) printed after 1985 could be placed in the safe category. Older books were pointedly left off the safe list … Since the law became effective the very next day, there was no time to waste in putting this advice into practice.”

And so overnight who knows how many thousands of books where thrown away?

It appears the bureaucracy decided how the law would be interpreted. This was under the Obama administration. My guess is that bureaucracy under Obama are told to define as broadly as possible.

Never mind how many thousands and thousands of children’s books and old (politically incorrect) textbooks were tossed out.

This points up an important principle of government expansion. I imagine that no one pushing for this legislation was thinking in terms of de facto censoring older books. No one wants the schools, libraries, and literate grandparents to have to destroy valuable books. But once the law is there, it can be used that way. That most people will not use this as a censorship tool is not enough – a few will, and legally. A tool for despots was not what was intended, but is what resulted.

[...] Ed Driscoll/Pajamas Media, a new Silicon Graffiti video: “2009: A Book Banning Odyssey”. We get kindly [...]

It must be why all of a sudden there are so many reissues on stores bookshelves. Which for a buyer and reader, that’s a good thing because those older used books are often in very poor condition.

But the worst of this is, that it also destroys books that were popular before Political Correctness. Now we are left with books touting the agenda of the left.

eburchelli,
That’s exactly what they want.

Suddenly this lead appeared in the ink? Overnight?
This is a decoy.

More insanity from the fruits and nuts in Congress.

We had all better be sure to pay attention to who we are voting for in 2010! Get these bums out!

Ron B

Pushed by who? Whose agenda was this driven by? What government agency wrote the bill and handed it to the politicians?

Aloysiusmiller:

According to Wikipedia (see also Govtrack.us) the chief sponsor of CPSIA was Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), later seen comparing Harry Reid, and anybody else who would attempt to block Roland Burriss’ Senate appointment as being the next George Wallace or Bull Connor.

Any thoughts about snopes.com, the urban legend debunking page, declaring this story as “false” and saying people are getting hysterical over nothing?

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/pending/cpsia.asp

Fred

Fred,

The Snopes page is rather ambiguously worded. Yes, as I understand it, their rules were relaxed a bit in regards to toys and like; Ed Morrissey had a good post on that topic at Hot Air. But as the Snopes page notes:

A CPSC announcement issued on 6 February 2009 regarding that agency’s enforcement policy also stated that they would not “impose penalties against anyone for making, importing, distributing, or selling” certain specified items, including any “ordinary children’s book printed after 1985.” Of course, vendors of second-hand products still face the quandary that even though the CPSC has stated they are exempt from the testing and certification requirements of the CPSIA, they still have to ensure that the items they sell meet the new standards for lead and phthalate content.

And that post-1985 cut-off date for books was mentioned in my video, in my radio interview with Walter Olson, and I believe in his City Journal article as well.

[...] speaking of CPSIA, my recent “2009: A Book Banning Odyssey” video, is now up on YouTube, for those who prefer (or whose Internet connections prefer) that video [...]

[...] their wares. For my video look at CPSIA’s deleterious impact on books published before 1985, click here. Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Liberal Fascism, The Future and its Enemies, The New [...]

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