If true they fit the exact definition of doublespeak.

Same thing the far left does on college campuses. They just do it under the guise of victimhood with terms like "assault" being used to describe someone speaking an unpopular opinion. If the school book wars said the kids were "assaulted" by this "hate speech" would that make it okay? Is that what they are missing is someone feigning victimhood?

As long as the tyrants are on "their" "side" , 2A gun nuts love government tyranny, and the right to commit tyranny.

They are the tyranny. They're literally attacking Americans with the military now. GOP has fully descended into whatever Tr*mp wants and he seems to want to destroy America.

By your logic, the government should be forced to purchase firearms and make them freely available to the citizens.

The government deciding standards for content it purchase is neither tyranny nor fascism. You are free to purchase as much controversial or sexually explicit material as you see fit.

Well, maybe in practice. You could consider it an example of the law of unintended consequences.

Although I would apply it equally to the other political side as well. “Diversity” = everyone has to think like me, “inclusion” = exclude certain groups and so on

Universities saying they're "diverse" until some students started promoting terrorist and acting anti-Semitic.

This is a strange framing. These laws are neither about what is taught in schools nor what books schools are required to stock, but rather restrictions on what books schools may chose to make available to the children. The government is not limiting the free speech of the authors, but these laws are the government limiting access to the authors' free speech, which is at least related to free speech, even if you don't buy that it is an restriction of free speech per se.

I do, however, think it is also worth noting that there is value in critically discussing the ideologies espoused by "The Bell Curve" and "Mein Kampf", since both ideologies persist and continue to have influence on American politics today.

I am contrasting the difference between 1) those who paid attention and took action, the normal type of free speech defenders, and 2) self-described "absolutists" who have no problem with this sort of vaguely defined restriction on speech.

The judicial system is a wreck and obviously works for rich people only. This sort of obstruction of every day life by people seeking to destroy democracy should be filtered out of the system otherwise they can get their way or keep filing lawsuits. How? It starts with education which is why they're attacking it.

Especially with the new Tr*mpian ethos of rules for thee, not for me.

I don't think courts should be where laws are decided. The main reason is that every obvious case like this undermines their power in future. Soon you will have people who start to question if courts don't have too much power. When you finally get to some important politically dividing case, all these secondary rulings in the past would be used against the courts.

Would be preferable to not see administrations repeatedly try obviously blatantly unconstitutional moves. Don't need to be a constitutional law expert to see the problem here.

Is driving 100mph down the highway OK as long as you slow down right before the known speed trap? The system worked?

You seem to be making a bunch of unwarranted assumptions about what's in my mind, and getting upset about that, but I can't even imagine what your assumptions are. Your only stated assumption, about me thinking you are "Republican," is false, and not at all contained in my comment.

If you are motivated towards free speech action because of banned books don't you think I would suppprt you in that?! That's the entire thrust of my comment, I think people fighting for free speech are great, and based on the information you provided you seem to be doing that!

liberal commodification and Christian nationalism are both contradictions in terms.

In the UK and I understand libertarianism to mean an extreme free market position, usually in the belief that markets will fix problems unregulated. I think the UK definition is less extreme than the US one but on similar lines.

There are plenty of constitutionalists, and reducing the entire polity to either neoliberal or fascists ignores the reality of the country. Further, by trying to ignore the existence of the large number of us who do want to defend the constitution, you hasten it's demise by emboldening those who are seeking to destroy it.

I don't agree with calling anarchy the most far-left ideology, just as I don't agree with calling Marxism the most far-left ideology, because this isn't a one-dimensional axis. The meaning of words is continuously shifting in language, especially with something as slippery as political ideologies, which themselves are continually changing. We must make the words the tools of our communication, instead of our communication the tool of the words.

There is no philosophical difference between libertarianism and anarchism, only a difference in how they predict people will behave in the absence of centralized authority.

FIRE is still spending the bulk of their media outreach complaining about the left. Yes, they aren't totally without principle but it is very clear that they treat threats to speech from the left and right very very differently.

Scott alexander and Zvi were the saddest cases- had a lot of respect for them a while back.

Oh and musk of course but I think that's ketamine poisoning, not long-planned betrayal.

I’m really happy FIRE still exists now that the ACLU has abandoned all semblance of principles. I can’t imagine them litigating the Skokie case today.

> Free speech absolutists are mostly principled people who want to defend civil liberties

If this were true, where were they on this clear case of government censorship?

Check out this thread, and the single person admitting to be an "absolutist" seems to have no opposition to this law at all, and merely wants to defend limits to speech.

Free speech "absolutists" are the least principled defenders of free speech, but they may have extremely right-wing principles they are trying to defend. Others here have given examples of high-profile "absolutists" but I'm talking about those I encounter online mostly, such as in this thread.

> Free speech absolutists are mostly principled people who want to defend civil liberties

I genuinely laughed out loud here. As a Mastodon operator, when I see another new instance describe itself as “free speech absolutists”, it means they’re about to fill up with 2 things: Nazis (as in, literally swastikas and “Jews are oppressing me!” memes) and drawings of Japanese 8 year olds in lingerie.

Every. Single. Time.

Yes. Obviously there are books that are inappropriate in elementary school libraries. Different criteria may apply to high-school libraries. But the point is these are curated collections no matter what. Nobody is prevented from reading what they want to read outside of that.

My high school library didn't offer much popular paperback fiction, but I could have found that at the county public library, or at any bookstore or most general retail stores.

School libraries have limited space, funds, and are constantly making decisions about what is age-appropriate and of educational value.

I think the issue is your framing of libraries as "the government's own libraries".

Those libraries are to the people and paid by the people.

Similarly, the school curriculum is not to be controlled by the government, public schools are also to the people and paid by the people.

In both cases, the criteria for school curriculum and the books to stock are pedagogy. What will best prepare and educate students so they can innovate, thrive and improve our society later in life.

Attempts at seizing control of the school curriculum or the material made available to students for their pedagogy (like books they can research) by the government in a way that appears to be for some political or value setting agenda and not the criteria of offering the best pedagogy for students feels like propaganda and information control for political gain.

Your first and second paragraphs are in opposition to each other. The government is setting strict rules about what sort of books are allowed with this law. It's not a mere selection of the many books, but a strict ban of certain types of books based on their content. When the government establishes laws like this, they must be in accordance with our constitution above all, and that sort of strict criteria on banning certain types of books disagrees with the first amendment and the legal tradition around it.

Similarly, you are also wrong about this compelling the government to stock certain books, that's not on the table at all.

> It seems to me that the government is allowed to decide what books to buy and stock in its own libraries. I don't understand how freedom of speech obligates the government to make a book available for free.

The concern here is that letting the government decide which books are kosher for its school libraries and which books aren't kosher is that taken to its extreme, the government could ban all books that aren't the King James Bible without explicitly adopting a pro-King James Bible policy. And if that's the only kind of book they stock in the library, then children who want to check out books are going to be reading literature with a certain kind of slant to it.

Replace the King James Bible with whatever you personally wouldn't want kids to be reading, e.g. the Quran or the Kama Sutra.

School is public sector, restricting free speech in the public sector is a free speech problem.

Private libraries banning books is perfectly fine and theyre allowed to do that. Public libraries aren't private.

if the government is running a library it shouldn't be able to engage in view point discrimination. for example it shouldn't be able to remove all books by Democratic presidents while keeping books by Republican presidents or vice versa. the weird thing is the state via an accidental conspiracy between librarians has arguably been engaging in view point discrimination. even though this has not been legislated, or commanded by the executive and is probably in contradiction with what the current executive wants it should not be allowed either.

Where is the "corruption" here? Be specific.

Public funds are our money. They are literally our tax dollars.

Also, "removing" books means the money was already spent. So it's just about whether we should waste money or not by tossing items in good condition.

The amount of public money lost litigating the losing side of this lawsuit surely dwarfs the costs of the books involved? I say again, losing side, because this failed law was very clearly unconstitutional all along—the proponents went out of their way to transfer this taxpayer money to law firms, for a stunt.

What does that point have to do anything?

They are also available in schools, because the judge here enforced the US constitution.

The article is about Florida politicians trying to censor books in public schools, literal government censorship.

> freely ... spend your own money

Come on, now.