A HS student to their TX school board, which is banning books:
“I’m not going to sit here and talk about the slippery slope that book banning leads to because I learned from a book, that I checked out from my school’s library, that I don’t need to resort to logical fallacy to make a point. I’m simply going to say that no government – and public school is an extension of government – has ever banned books, and banned information from its public, and been remembered in history as the good guys.”
...*all* of America still has slaves.
The 13th amendment explicitly says slavery is allowed for people convicted for a crime.
Which is the legal basis for the US prison industry.
@Artemis13Athena [email protected] @bodhipaksa I was honestly shocked when I learned it. I'm not American, so it's not like I go out of my way to read US Constitution Amendments, I think I learned it in an ep of WNYC's "More Perfect"
We learn "the Civil War was fought to end slavery and it was abolished at the end" in high school (Italy) and... it was not! It was RATIFIED PERMANENTLY, with just a tiny precondition. What was technically ended was chattel slavery, and really, only barely.
@Artemis13Athena @bodhipaksa when one learns it (AND the fact that private for-profit prisons exist), suddenly the absurdly high incarceration rate of the US makes way more sense.
And has deep, heavy consequences elsewhere: how many jobs' markets were basically artificially depressed by the availability of ultra-cheap/free prison labor? I bet many ppl in favor of that system don't even see it's hamstringing their families too.
But then, anti-labor sentiment and policy is nothing new, either
@alena_03 @renatoram @flutterfli007 Indeed. Hollywood didn't employ many black actors and usually then only in minor or demeaning roles.
It would seem illustrative, though, that a film about a constitutional provision designed to ensure that Black Americans could still be enslaved would center on white people.
@bodhipaksa
"In 1982 the Supreme Court took up the case, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, when students sued a school board after books were removed from the library. Justice William Brennan was joined by Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, and in part by Harry Blackmun in the majority opinion, which reaffirmed the precedent that “local schools boards have broad discretion in the management of school affairs…[it] must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.”
In laymen’s terms, removing books from a school library invokes First Amendment rights endowed by the Constitution “to receive information and ideas” because of the inherent and special nature of a school library, and school officials removing books because of political beliefs would be akin to suppressing ideas."
AKA, this is a 1A violation, but good luck suing that with the current SCOTUS.
@reardon15 @bodhipaksa I checked. The last one did unfortunately. It prohibits the use of sexually explicit material in schools except if “The exempted material possesses serious educational value for minors or possesses serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” And parental consent is given.
@reardon15 @strong_sue "Such materials"? It sounds like you're assuming there is some merit in these bannings.
The purposes of the current rounds of book bannings are 1) to stop kids being aware of racism. 2) To ban any mention of sexual orientations except straightness. 3) To make the claim that teachers are sexually "grooming" kids, in order to undermine faith in the public education system.
It's a dishonest attempt at authoritarian social control.
@reardon15 @strong_sue Yes, teachers and librarians are trained in what materials are suitable for children. Governments and school boards aren't, and they make political decisions based on things like, "Let's not teach much about slavery, because it might make white people look bad."
Hence the desire to ban a biography of Michelle Obama, who is descended from people who were enslaved. "You can't have white children thinking about things, because it might harm their self-esteem."
@bodhipaksa @reardon15 @strong_sue
Fortunately the law of unintended consequences makes it much more likely that the books banned in Florida schools will be read, see the Streisand effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
@EveyJo @bodhipaksa The kids are doing great. It's adults who are failing to meet the very, very low expectations.
Don't look to the kids to save us. In our system, they're about 50 years away from the majority of positions of power.
Attached: 1 image I’ve been saying this, for years, Prohibition does nothing but increase demand. If you prohibit a drug, drink, or a book, or any other kind of media, you will increase interest in that thing exponentially. Forbidding me to read anything worked out really well for my parents. I read everything they told me not to! #ReversePsychology.
@johnno Who would have the power to ban the website? Individual states don't have that power, and even if they tried to, kids know about VPNs. The federal government could, but any ban would be removed by the courts as an infringement of first amendment rights.
Also, "we" are not banning books. "They" are. "We" need to fight them, and such a website would be one way of doing that.
@bodhipaksa
Sorry to disagree, but WE (as a society) are banning books.
Here in The Netherlands we have one (1) officially banned book. (Mein Kampf)
In my opinion the huge number of banned books in the US speaks volumes about the indisposition of that society.
@johnno Saying it again doesn't make it true.
There is one political party in the US that is banning books. The Republican Party is not the United States. It's simply one political element within the United States.
@Frantasaur @bodhipaksa @johnno Yeah, no. Proportional representation which results in the American Nazi Party getting 2% of the seats is not preferable to the Jungle Primary in which the winner *always* gets over 50% of the vote.
Our "Third Parties" don't win elections because they suck. Best case: they're deeply stupid. More likely, they're "controlled opposition" for rational partisans.
@Frantasaur @bodhipaksa @johnno I wish more of their governance but at least they understand that dictating police requires winning elections.
The third parties front like they're real contenders for presidential races without winning any of the 536 federal offices. Forget voters, they can't even find candidates for state-level races.
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