Lies About Book Bans

American librarians are one of the most woke groups in America.  Just go read the library association’s website.  Librarians have used their position to both censor the availability of conservative books and authors, to downplay the relevance of classic literature and to promote whacked left-wing causes.  Most egregiously they are using libraries to promote the indoctrination and recruitment of children in regard to gender ideology and racist theories.  Any attempt by parents to intercede and to control what their children have access to is referred to as book bans, which is simply a lie.  Parents have every right to be the ultimate deciders about what their children have access to.  This is the crux of the “book ban” issue:  are parents going to be able to protect their children from indoctrination and recruitment or not.

So everynow and then on Twitter I see some random post that catches my eye.  This time it was a post about a library in Texas supposedly illegally banning books and the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issuing an opinion that hurts free speech..  As usual, a lot of the people posting haven’t read the opinions and don’t even have a grasp of the basic facts.  What actually happened was that the library staff decided that certain books were not appropriate.  They were not required to do this by any law; it was a decision made by the staff.  I would not that for many years librarians have usually removed or kept books by conservatives or on conservative topics out of libraries, circulating lists to support this effort.  No big outcry from the whacked progressives on this clear viewpoint advocacy.

The people who sued tried to say that the library had to have these books; that not doing so abridged their freedom of speech rights.  An obviously bullshit theory, as the Fifth Circuit noted.  First, any right to “receive information” is limited, for the common-sense reason that otherwise everyone could constantly sue any government entity to force it to “say” any number of viewpoints.  Second, there is no right to force government to engage in any speech.  Libraries make decisions about what is contained therein all the time.  You can find the opinion hear and read it for yourself, which is always the best way to really understand an issue.   You can also always find a way, with the incredible plethora of information available online and through other sources, to read any book, article, speech, or anything else that you want to.  No need to burden libraries with the obligation to satisfy every whacko’s desire to fill its shelves with books supporting the whacko’s viewpoint.  (5th Circuit Opinion)