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.

bigfishrunning 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think the problem with these laws is that they're too general. I think we can all agree that there are topics that should not be in elementary school libraries -- I don't think my 7 year old needs to be reading about oral sex for instance, regardless of the gender or sexuality of the participants. The real problem is the nature of the wording of "pornographic", which is poorly defined as "I know it when i see it", and stretched by disingenuous people with an agenda.

As a "Free Speech Absolutionist", I think as much material as possible should be in public libraries, including material that some people object to. I also think that school libraries should be curated to what is appropriate for the audience. The rub here is defining what is "appropriate". Silencing minority literature is bad. Also allowing my elementary school kids to check out "the turner diaries" is bad. There needs to be a balance.

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wnoise 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Topics? No, I don't agree with that. Almost any subject can be treated in an age-appropriate manner.

A 7-year-old doesn't need to read about nearly any topic. Excluding any mention of all of those subjects from the school library leaves a nearly empty library.

For that heavy-handed of a response to be _legally mandated_ requires not just "no need", but some strong evidence of harm. Mentions of sex, oral or otherwise, doesn't actually have much evidence of harm. Certain treatments of it might -- but that's not what the law targets, nor can effectively target. It covers mere mentions or small bits of explicit language, even where that is necessary for the effect of the book. These can and do make parents profoundly uncomfortable, though, and that is worth taking into consideration.

I would think that the usual approach of professional librarians curating based on their own judgement, subject to some oversight from the local school boards to take into account these valid discomforts, but largely baseless fears would be a far better approach.

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In what way would you consider yourself an "absolutist" with views like these? It seems that free speech has quite a few limitations in your view.

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bigfishrunning 3 days ago | parent [-]

Let's take the opposite approach -- should schools stock back-issues of "Hustler" magazine? What about the "Anarchists Cookbook"? should we print it and put it on the shelf of a middle school?

You can say whatever you want, that doesn't make it a good idea to stock a school with it.

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm asking about "absolutist" and it's meaning. You replied with something different, about which books should or should not be in a school library.

What does "absolutist" mean to you if you think that limits to what's in a library are a "good idea"?

Remember, I'm not talking about whether there should be limits or not, I'm asking about your self-description of "absolutist" and why absolutism still has fuzzy definitions of what is allowed or not.

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bigfishrunning 3 days ago | parent [-]

There's a difference between allowing you to say something and hiring you to say it to my kids.

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent [-]

Got it, you have made that abundantly clear (and not that it matters but I agree.)

Again: how is your belief in this compatible with being an "absolutist"?

I don't know how I can phrase this more clearly, yet you repeatedly doge the question.

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bigfishrunning 3 days ago | parent [-]

You are allowed to say absolutely whatever you want, Write it down, and sell that material without fear of repercussion. I don't know how to be more clear about this.

	▲	ModernMech 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You are both completely clear yet not understanding one another. Let me try to break the deadlock: epistasis is getting at the fact that you can't call yourself an "absolutist" on free speech because your position is not absolute, but qualified -- all speech is free except speech you find problematic, which shall be regulated. That's pretty much everyone's definition of free speech, not an absolutist take. An absolutist would say there should be absolutely no content-based restrictions on what is in the library regardless of the ages of the patrons. Hustler, Anarchist Cookbook, whatever. They might justify that by saying "free speech is so important we can't place any limits on it. If you as a parent find the idea your child might access speech you find distasteful, it's up to you to prevent your child from seeing it, not the library or the government". > without fear of repercussion Let's say you write a book about being a kid and finding it uncomfortable to grow up who you are. You're free to write it, free to talk about it, free to to sell it. But then the government adds your book to a list of books they deem "pedophilic and a danger to children." Do you think you would be free from repercussions from the government publishing your book on the harmful to kids list? Can free speech thrive in such an environment?
	▲	epistasis 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The government banning your book from a school library is clearly a repercussion. That's what free speech has always been about, limit the ability of the government to enact repercussions. What is "absolute" about this? Do you want your own speech to be absolutely free of repercussions to you, be they government or not? Is that it? I really have trouble trying to put some sort of consistent framework in this, unless it's dividing the world into two classes of people: those who will not experience repercussions and those who will experience repercussions for their speech.

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komali2 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There's not really anything in the anarchist cookbook that isn't everywhere on the internet at this point, or even youtube.

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alistairSH 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My (completely inadequate) test... would the people banning books in FL (or wherever else) apply those same rules to the Bible? If not, they're not interested in protecting the children from explicit, but rather forcing their religious ideology on the rest of us.

	▲	TimorousBestie 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		No worries, the Bible is safe in Florida schools. https://www.christianpost.com/news/florida-school-board-vote...

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fknorangesite 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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bigfishrunning 3 days ago | parent [-]

The point I'm trying to make is that panicing about book bans is not how you combat these bad-faith actors. It's defining rules to satiate their stated aims, and force them to bring their other motives to light, thus nullifying their arguments.

	▲	UncleMeat 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Their stated aims are banning any visibility of trans people in all media.

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Levitz 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Aren't public schools part of government? This looks like a bizarre state of affairs to me if the government can't regulate speech from the government.

Say someone in the police department takes the public stance, as a police officer, that black people are subhuman degenerates, is any pushback from the government a first amendment issue? Note this is an ideological stance and doesn't involve any of their duties.

EDIT: I should have done better than to comment this without the very relevant input from the article. Better late than never I guess:

>A second key component of this ruling is on whether or not regulating books in school libraries constituted “government speech.” Officials for the state argued that they were empowered to make decisions about the materials in those collections because it constituted “government speech” and thus, was not subject to the First Amendment.

>Judge Mendoza disagreed.

>“*A blanket content-based prohibition on materials, rather than one based on individualized curation, hardly expresses any intentional government message at all.* Slapping the label of government speech on book removals only serves to stifle the disfavored viewpoints,” he wrote. While parents have the right to object to “direct the upbringing and education of children,” the government cannot then “repackage their speech and pass it off as its own.”

Emphasis mine. This is frankly even weirder to me. If the government made a blanket, content-based prohibition of any material with a black character, that wouldn't express any intentional government message at all? Really?

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent [-]

Stocking a book in a library is not speech from the government. If it were, we couldn't have religious books in school libraries, but we do.

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poplarsol 3 days ago | parent [-]

If stocking a book is not speech then it is not a restriction on speech to decide not to stock a book.

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epistasis 3 days ago | parent [-]

Any individual decision, no. A systematic bias over many decisions could be a restriction on speech. (Edit: some systematic biases over the decisions are restrictions on speech that are unconstitutional, but not all.)

A law of the sort that was struck down is clearly an unconstitutional restriction on speech.

	▲	Levitz 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		On whose speech? It seems more and more that the elephant in the room here is that schools are part of government, but they overwhelmingly lean the opposite side of the administration and they want to exercise their speech through their positions, but the government doesn't want to allow that. Private individuals would of course enjoy first amendment protections on speech, but if you are government you don't get your speech restricted by government, that's just government. You can't eat your cake and have it too.