If they have to axe places of public congregation to shore up the budget, before Republicans cut schools, libraries and parks, I propose they start with churches and their tax exemption.
We really are in the beggining (or maybe middle?) of something nasty. Reminiscent of things you read in history books. Certainly makes me want to leave the country. Turmoil of this scale in the US is probably something of a worldwide event though, unfortunately.
As stated in the article, the initiative is dead in the water, as per the Missouri constitution:
> Article IX Section 10. Free public libraries—declaration of policy—state aid to local
public libraries.—It is hereby declared to be the policy of the state to promote the
establishment and development of free public libraries and to accept the obligation of
their support by the state and its subdivisions and municipalities in such manner as may
be provided by law. When any such subdivision or municipality supports a free library,
the general assembly shall grant aid to such public library in such manner and in such
amounts as may be provided by law.
I found this with a simple ctrl-f. However, thanks to the MO Library Association for knowing their law and educating people, otherwise I never would have looked.
That's not how it works though. The American system is reactive. Meaning, you could see something like this enacted with years of disruption, even if it is ultimately over turned.
Worse, if the court really wants to protect the law, they use "standing weaselry" to effectively protect it from being challenged.
This looks like a red-meat bill that won't pass both houses but it's a big deal that it made it through one. Usually these die in committee or never get schedule for a floor vote.
>What quality do librarians and teachers possess that makes them infallible?
When did the they say anything remotely along those lines? If you think libraries/educators across the board are an enemy that need to be fought then you need to take a step back and really assess where that mentality is coming from.
“It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! it’s all over.”
It's one thing to say "their constituents support bad policies and are being cruel," which is totally fair. They are being cruel. They are supporting bad policies. They are often voting in a way that is even against their own self-interest just to "own the libs." But it's another to call them literally illiterate and play into redneck stereotypes, i.e. engaging in the exact same of social behavior they do against their political opponents.
What they are doing and supporting is terrible on its own.
My rule of thumb is that if something sounds completely evil and it exactly conforms to a political stereotype, there must be more to the story.
The article itself is somewhat thin on the details. Would anyone who knows more about the situation be able to give some nuance? I have a feeling this is brinkmanship at play.
Yes, see my linked article elsewhere in the thread. The libraries wanted to make porn available to kids, the republicans said if they did that they would try to pull their funding, and the libraries called them on it.
Teachers wanted to have books like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cd5VUhMrF4 available in classrooms (this is on the MO 'banned books' list). Parents (obviously) objected to this, but the teachers/librarians dug their heels in.
Due to a loss of trust, parents started demanding oversight into everything that the schools/libraries were making available, and that's how you end up with absolutely crazy things like banning photos of the statue of David.
TLDW: Erika Moen (web cartoonist) wrote a book called "Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships and Being Human"; in the chapter on sexting she advises teens that pictures they send to people can never be deleted and therefore they should crop out their faces and any identifying birthmarks, etc, before sending one. A concerned parent read this passage at a school board meeting to protest this books inclusion in the library. Hilarity ensues.
> The libraries wanted to make porn available to kids
Assuming that you consider every single one of the titles on this list to be “porn”, but while many of them might be dubiously appropriate for (especially young) children, I don’t think very many of them meet any reasonable definition of “porn”.
I'm an American who leans politically center-right. Here's my opinionated perspective on this issue.
In recent years, public libraries across the US and UK have hosted a number of Drag Queen Story Hours. These are events where men dressed as sexual parodies of women read books to young children. Sometimes the men dance provocatively for the kids, or wear revealing outfits, or have kids climb all over them:
At the same time, "child-friendly" and "all-ages" drag shows have popped up at gay bars and clubs across the US. These are often much more sexually provocative than shows hosted in libraries:
Far-left militia armed with AR-15s have shown up at some all-ages shows to "protect" them from protestors. The armed militants in these photos are self-identified anti-fascists:
These events have become the focus intense polarization. Republicans say they're sexual performances designed to desensitize kids to advances from adults. Democrats say they're expressions of LGBT pride.
There is a growing conservative backlash to "all-ages" or "family-friendly" drag events generally and Drag Queen Story Hour in particular. Many parents are uncomfortable with the sexual displays aimed at children. Some women see drag as sexual blackface. This back...
>The rule introduced by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft would block state funding for libraries if they allow minors to access books that are pornographic or labeled as obscene under state statutes
So the headline could be restated as: Libraries in Missouri insist on making porn available to children, and lose their funding. In fact, it doesn't even say they can't have porn, it just says that they can't give it out to little kids.
As somebody with young kids: can these people, on both sides, please stop trying to use my kids as soldiers in their petty culture wars?
I want to be able to send my kids to a school and trust that the teachers there aren't going to try and use that as an opportunity to indoctrinate them. Teach them history, teach them math, and then leave them alone to be children.
Here's what *IS* happening as a result of this culture war, and the insistence on making children be the pawns in it: the people who can afford it aren't sending their kids to public schools anymore. What this means is that public schools turn into proverbial ghettos; the places where only the kids who couldn't get out go.
That is absolutely horrible. The idea of a public education should be something we're proud of as a society, but we're watching it be destroyed in the interest of a tiny minority of teachers and administrators pushing radical ideologies. The school, or the library, is not the place for this, and this absolutely tiny minority of activists is ruining a public good for everyone.
"The banned books include graphic novels such as Batman and X-Men, a copy of Reader’s Digest, works about artists including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, graphic novel adaptations of classics by William Shakespeare and Mark Twain, the Pulitzer-prize winning graphic novel Maus and other books about the Holocaust, and The Children’s Bible."
He's reading about how, as a child, you can send sexually explicit photos to people on the internet. It seems *completely* reasonable to remove this book from libraries.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, but demonstrative of exactly the type of erosion of trust I'm talking about WRT to the discourse around this topic, Batman and X-Men comics are not the focus of these types of book bans.
“Think of the children” is the oldest excuse in the book and is almost exclusively used to make sure your detractors/opposition look like they don’t care about children. In an age where seemingly half the GOP calls democrats “pedophiles” at the drop of a hat, this is an obvious tactic they’ll draw on.
What indoctrination is actually going on? It’s a convenient bogeyman, but as someone that went through the public school system, and with younger siblings that did so after me, I’m honestly not sure what people mean by this.
I'd expect that it's not the pornographic bit, but the labelled as obscene bit that's the sticking point. I visited a lot of libraries in my youth, youth librarians actually don't make it a practice to give kids porn usually, kids seek that out on their own, it's part of their capacious nature. Also many books in libraries typically get donated (directly or via financial donations), especially in poorer areas, and porn is not really on the shortlist of things librarians tend to want to prioritize money for. Wouldn't it be better to prosecute specific misconduct than to create committees of politicians for book censorship?
> I’d expect that it’s not the pornographic bit, but the labelled as obscene bit that’s the sticking point.
Obsecenity is a legal category, and not all pornography is obscenity. OTOH, “labelled as obscene” may not actually be obscenity, and the list of the actual books banned under the law that this defunding is a retaliation for a lawsuit against seems to largely be books that are neither obscene nor pornographic.
Yep, agreed! I'm not even so sure the Miller test makes much sense:
```
(1) whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
(2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
(3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
```
I feel like all of this is downstream of the same trans panic that's going on right now. And all of it is exactly the same as the 70s and 80s gay/satanic panics.
67 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 49.1 ms ] threadEdit: Beat me to it with the tax exemption edit.
Government by grifters for grifters and con artists. It can't get much nastier.
> Article IX Section 10. Free public libraries—declaration of policy—state aid to local public libraries.—It is hereby declared to be the policy of the state to promote the establishment and development of free public libraries and to accept the obligation of their support by the state and its subdivisions and municipalities in such manner as may be provided by law. When any such subdivision or municipality supports a free library, the general assembly shall grant aid to such public library in such manner and in such amounts as may be provided by law.
I found this with a simple ctrl-f. However, thanks to the MO Library Association for knowing their law and educating people, otherwise I never would have looked.
>in such manner and in such amounts as may be provided by law.
Set amount = 0;
Set manner_of_support = "spiritual";
"in such amounts as may be provided by law"
Isn't this the law providing the manner and amounts?
Worse, if the court really wants to protect the law, they use "standing weaselry" to effectively protect it from being challenged.
This looks like a red-meat bill that won't pass both houses but it's a big deal that it made it through one. Usually these die in committee or never get schedule for a floor vote.
When did the they say anything remotely along those lines? If you think libraries/educators across the board are an enemy that need to be fought then you need to take a step back and really assess where that mentality is coming from.
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Half their constituents can't/don't read. If they did, they probably wouldn't be voting for them.
Voters got the legislature they deserved.
What they are doing and supporting is terrible on its own.
The article itself is somewhat thin on the details. Would anyone who knows more about the situation be able to give some nuance? I have a feeling this is brinkmanship at play.
Teachers wanted to have books like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cd5VUhMrF4 available in classrooms (this is on the MO 'banned books' list). Parents (obviously) objected to this, but the teachers/librarians dug their heels in.
Due to a loss of trust, parents started demanding oversight into everything that the schools/libraries were making available, and that's how you end up with absolutely crazy things like banning photos of the statue of David.
I couldn't find that mentioned anywhere in the linked article...?
this is an extremely bad faith interpretation of librarians upholding the first amendment.
Assuming that you consider every single one of the titles on this list to be “porn”, but while many of them might be dubiously appropriate for (especially young) children, I don’t think very many of them meet any reasonable definition of “porn”.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AVW8q-B4uSZIJ3mLqc5t...
I see you skipped the “nuance” part of the request.
In recent years, public libraries across the US and UK have hosted a number of Drag Queen Story Hours. These are events where men dressed as sexual parodies of women read books to young children. Sometimes the men dance provocatively for the kids, or wear revealing outfits, or have kids climb all over them:
https://alphanews.org/drag-queen-flashes-crotch-to-children-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VA72t7o24I
https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Drag...
Several performers and sponsors of these events have turned out to be sex offenders:
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-public-libra...
https://reduxx.info/drag-queen-charged-with-25-counts-of-fel...
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/second-drag-queen-story-ho...
Across the pond, the founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK has tweeted "love has no age" and openly associates with pedophiles:
https://thepostmillennial.com/founder-of-uk-drag-queen-story...
At the same time, "child-friendly" and "all-ages" drag shows have popped up at gay bars and clubs across the US. These are often much more sexually provocative than shows hosted in libraries:
https://reduxx.info/children-tipped-drag-queens-during-perfo...
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1543662744616013825
https://twitter.com/TaylerUSA/status/1538733481492094977
Far-left militia armed with AR-15s have shown up at some all-ages shows to "protect" them from protestors. The armed militants in these photos are self-identified anti-fascists:
https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2022/08/30/drag-brunch-ro...
These events have become the focus intense polarization. Republicans say they're sexual performances designed to desensitize kids to advances from adults. Democrats say they're expressions of LGBT pride.
There is a growing conservative backlash to "all-ages" or "family-friendly" drag events generally and Drag Queen Story Hour in particular. Many parents are uncomfortable with the sexual displays aimed at children. Some women see drag as sexual blackface. This back...
They also want to get rid of the sales tax on guns and ammo.
>The rule introduced by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft would block state funding for libraries if they allow minors to access books that are pornographic or labeled as obscene under state statutes
So the headline could be restated as: Libraries in Missouri insist on making porn available to children, and lose their funding. In fact, it doesn't even say they can't have porn, it just says that they can't give it out to little kids.
As somebody with young kids: can these people, on both sides, please stop trying to use my kids as soldiers in their petty culture wars?
I want to be able to send my kids to a school and trust that the teachers there aren't going to try and use that as an opportunity to indoctrinate them. Teach them history, teach them math, and then leave them alone to be children.
Here's what *IS* happening as a result of this culture war, and the insistence on making children be the pawns in it: the people who can afford it aren't sending their kids to public schools anymore. What this means is that public schools turn into proverbial ghettos; the places where only the kids who couldn't get out go.
That is absolutely horrible. The idea of a public education should be something we're proud of as a society, but we're watching it be destroyed in the interest of a tiny minority of teachers and administrators pushing radical ideologies. The school, or the library, is not the place for this, and this absolutely tiny minority of activists is ruining a public good for everyone.
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/nearly-300-books-re...
Here is a parent reading aloud from the book (on this list) "Let's talk about it": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cd5VUhMrF4
He's reading about how, as a child, you can send sexually explicit photos to people on the internet. It seems *completely* reasonable to remove this book from libraries.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, but demonstrative of exactly the type of erosion of trust I'm talking about WRT to the discourse around this topic, Batman and X-Men comics are not the focus of these types of book bans.
They never are. But hey, while we're at it, can we ban the bible, too? It's quite a violent book.
If they are on the list, they are part of the focus of the ban, whether or not they are part of what is used in the public propaganda.
(That the public propaganda for these bans misrepresent the actual focus is another area of concern, of course.)
Obsecenity is a legal category, and not all pornography is obscenity. OTOH, “labelled as obscene” may not actually be obscenity, and the list of the actual books banned under the law that this defunding is a retaliation for a lawsuit against seems to largely be books that are neither obscene nor pornographic.
``` (1) whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. ```
I feel like all of this is downstream of the same trans panic that's going on right now. And all of it is exactly the same as the 70s and 80s gay/satanic panics.