Freedom of Thought

[Jonathan Whatley]

No book should ever be banned. Opposing arguments or discussions of why a thought is wrong should be welcome. 

The whims of mob rule are never creative.

So then you are for allowing 2nd and 3rd graders to read Playbook magazines in school?  Where is the line if there is no line?

You won't define a line because then you will realize how rediculous your position is.

No one reasonably defines disallowing third graders from viewing sexually explicit photos in school as a "book ban." That's a "book ban" only by the most strained technical definition.

In a 1964 case weighing free speech against obscenity claims, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ['hard-core pornography'], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

The Handmaid's Tale is on one side of an obvious line (especially for high school and above), while Playboy is on the other.

[Charles Fout]

No book should ever be banned. Opposing arguments or discussions of why a thought is wrong should be welcome. 

The whims of mob rule are never creative.

So then you are for allowing 2nd and 3rd graders to read Playbook magazines in school?  Where is the line if there is no line?

You won't define a line because then you will realize how rediculous your position is.

I am not familiar with "Playbook" magazines. Do they have anything to do with sports?

Why is a line necessary?

[LevelUP]

No book should ever be banned. Opposing arguments or discussions of why a thought is wrong should be welcome. 

The whims of mob rule are never creative.

So then you are for allowing 2nd and 3rd graders to read Playboy magazines in school?  Where is the line if there is no line?

You won't define a line because then you will realize how rediculous your position is.

I am not familiar with "Playboy" magazines. Do they have anything to do with sports?

Why is a line necessary?

If You Tolerate Everything, You Stand for Nothing

[NotJoeBiden]

If You Tolerate Everything, You Stand for Nothing

But I dont tolerate censorship. I stand for free speech.


-
Joe the engineer

[LevelUP]

If You Tolerate Everything, You Stand for Nothing

But I dont tolerate censorship. I stand for free speech.


-
Joe the engineer

I don't like censorship, either. I didn't appreciate the cancellation of some of Dr. Seuss's books.

Instead of outright canceling a book, perhaps some could be rewritten for school use. They could create a school-friendly version alongside the original, similar to how there are TV edits of movies and radio edits of songs.

For instance, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' contains the N-word. Since it's in the public domain, anyone can reprint the book with that offensive content removed. I don't advocate for banning this book, but I wouldn't object if they chose to make such changes.

[NotJoeBiden]

If You Tolerate Everything, You Stand for Nothing

But I dont tolerate censorship. I stand for free speech.


-
Joe the engineer

I don't like censorship, either. I didn't appreciate the cancellation of some of Dr. Seuss's books.

Instead of outright canceling a book, perhaps some could be rewritten for school use. They could create a school-friendly version alongside the original, similar to how there are TV edits of movies and radio edits of songs.

For instance, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' contains the N-word. Since it's in the public domain, anyone can reprint the book with that offensive content removed. I don't advocate for banning this book, but I wouldn't object if they chose to make such changes.

Nobody banned Dr. Seuss, the publisher voluntarily decided to stop printing books with racist depictions.

If we look at the most banned book of all time, 1984, we can see the repression of a cautionary tale about this type of censorship.

Banning books is wrong