Here's the JOY about democracy, "fundamentally good things" COULD be supported by government budgets.
Things like food banks, libraries, health care.
These things COULD be supported by government budgets. The problem is Americans don't want good things. They ONLY want the things they want...some of which are also good. The difference there is, if folks saw the value of banding together and investing in things AS A SOCIETY AND CULTURE then society and culture would benefit. It is not JUST about what an individual wants, it's about what is good for many other people too.
Things can be supported privately or through government budgets, so it does not follow that if someone doesn't think that something should be funded through the government that they therefore do not want it. If people think that things are vital as a society and culture, then they will fund them regardless of whether or not the government involved and they will have a much greater chance of making a better use of those funds without the government being involved.
1) I know my public library had certain books that had age restrictions for getting signed out
2) Who are YOU to dictate for me or another person whether I should have access to that material?
I would posit that you and yours should definitely avoid LOOKING at those books (personally, I would as well). But what the heck? How is America the land of freedom (and the right wing considered the party of freedom) when they want to ban books from libraries?
The right argued for more racism on twitter, or at LEAST being able to express racist ideas uninhibited.
Why advocate for racism but argue against books about consensual sexual acts?
The fact that I pay taxes means that I should have a say in how it is spent, especially if it is being used to support causes that I do not support. You have access to that material if you choose to fund it regardless of whether or not it is something that I support, so me not supporting it is not dictating to you whether you should have access to that material. Again, public libraries do to require state funds in order to exist.
The reason why the land of the free is not also the land where there are no laws is because we can abuse our freedoms to do things that we ought not to do, so true freedom is not the freedom to do whatever we want, but the freedom to do what we ought.
It is not uncommon for a black cop can shoot a black or white person and a white cop can shoot a white person without making any headlines, but a white cop shooting a black person often makes all sorts of headlines, with the left screaming about racism regardless of the the details of the situation and making them into a hero even if they had a criminal record a mile long. In my view, most of what I've seen labeled as being racist has nothing to do with racism, so the problem with censoring racist comments is that I have no trust whatsoever that the people doing the censoring to correctly determine what is racist and to not use it as a political weapon. People on the left have the freedom to say things that would cause an uproar if it were said by someone on the right, so there is a huge double standard. Just recently people got banned from twitter too because they quoted a verse from the Bible that spoke against taking vengeance in regard to trans people or if people raised concerns about violence being done by trans people, so there is no question it is being used as a political weapon. So whether something should be censored on twitter is different issue than whether my taxes should be used to support something that I don't support.
Seriously.... why do people worship the free market as the only way to make decisions? As if that's the ONLY WAY to dictate whether something should EVEN EXIST.
It is not not worshipping the free market to think think that people should have the freedom to vote with their wallet about what they think is vital. Furthermore, there is nothing about not wanting sexually explicit books to be purchased with state funds that dictates whether or not that they should exist or be available through other means. The government is supported by the people, so there is nothing that the government does with tax money that can't be privately supported instead. The people in government represent the will of the people, so if the people don't consider something to be vital to support without government funding, then I see no grounds for the people in government to consider it to be vital.
