Book banning

[mindalan]

Every fall, our campus has a display of banned books.
The list covers everything from Harry Potter to the Bible.

I think the probanners and antibanners should come to an agreement on whether these books should be banned or not. If a book is banned there will always be someone who protests its banning. Wearing lables that say "banning books is against the 1st amendment" is an extream answer to this issue.

What do you think? Should books be banned or unbanned ?

 

[Kroger99]

Every fall, our campus has a display of banned books.
The list covers everything from Harry Potter to the Bible.

I think the probanners and antibanners should come to an agreement on whether these books should be banned or not. If a book is banned there will always be someone who protests its banning. Wearing lables that say "banning books is against the 1st amendment" is an extream answer to this issue.

What do you think? Should books be banned or unbanned ?

Tough Call. Is this a private or public School?

 

[In A Perfect World]

Is this a private or public School?

Yea i know... really.

Book banning just goes to show whoever wants the books banned doesn't want people to think for themselves.

 

[mindalan]

Community College.

 

[Mr. QWERTY]

I think the probanners and antibanners should come to an agreement on whether these books should be banned or not.

Isn't this the point though? Anti-banners do not believe that any book should be banned. Probanners believe that books should be banned. How can an agreement be reached?

BTW, the list is compiled from a variety of sources. It is not as if all of those books have been banned at your school. They have all been banned somewhere, usually in K-12 school districts.

If a book is banned there will always be someone who protests its banning. Wearing lables that say "banning books is against the 1st amendment" is an extream answer to this issue.

What do you think? Should books be banned or unbanned ?

Why/how is wearing a button extreme? It is just a button after all. But, since these books are generally banned by school districts, which are government entities, then yes, it is a violation of the first amendment, wherein government is telling an author what he/she can write, a library or bookstore what they can stock, and people what they can read.

It is undeniably a violation of the 1st amendment.

So, no, do not ban any books. Period.

 

[In A Perfect World]

Community College.

I'm scared to ask where.

Why would a college of all places DISCOURAGE reading?

tis absurd!

 

[Yusuf Evans]

Tough Call. Is this a private or public School?

This shouldn't matter. Libraries are made for research and education, so why should books be banned? I'm surprised that Harry Potter is being banned, as that opens up people's imaginations. As for the Bible, you do not have to believe in it, to get something out of the stories within. It can be considered a piece of fiction, but with flare. I believe that for colleges and universities, banned books should be put to a vote by the students. After all, they are paying for their education. As for public schools, it should be put to vote by the taxpayers of that district. No school leadership has the authority to up and decide what is allowed to be read in the library. This is a democracy, not a socialistic society.

 

[Natman]

What do you think? Should books be banned or unbanned ?

I'm not in favor of outright banning of books. However, I do not feel that all books should be readily available for children under the age of consent (usually 18). Parents should feel comfortable bring their children into a public library without fear of their children encountering materials that would make the parents cringe.

At the same time, there are many books and resources that contain questionable materials along side materials that could be deem useful and even edifying.

Books with questionable material or that espouse immoral and illegal activity as perfectly normal and acceptable, in communities that see them as unacceptable, should be set aside in an area where access is available to responsible adults, by request only.

If a book is questionable, I have no problem with it being placed in this category until there is a consensus by the community that it should be place on the shelf, even if that includes the Bible. At least it is available.

Basically, the decision as the the acquisition and the display status of books and resources in local libraries should be controlled by the communities that fund and use the library, not by the ALA, the ACLU or even the American Family Association.

That's not censorship. That's just good sense.

Son-cerely,
Nathan Powers

 

[Mr. QWERTY]

I'm scared to ask where.

Why would a college of all places DISCOURAGE reading?

tis absurd!

As I mentioned above, I doubt very much that these are books that mindalan's school is banning, or considering banning. This is a promotional program to bring attention to the fact that books are being banned in a variety of places.

 

[In A Perfect World]

I
If a book is questionable, I have no problem with it being placed in this category until there is a consensus by the community that it should be place on the shelf, even if that includes the Bible. At least it is available.

Basically, the decision as the the acquisition and the display status of books and resources in local libraries should be controlled by the communities that fund and use the library, not by the ALA, the ACLU or even the American Family Association.

That's fine and dandy, but there's two problems with it:

1) It will just shelter kids who can't pick out all their books. When their parents pay taxes to ensure they only read the right books from the library, the kids are the ones hurt. They will fail in the real world since they've been sheltred all their lives - why use public funding to shelter America's youth?

2) What happens when 30% of the community wants a book the other 70% doesnt want? Does the 30%'s rights get trampled upon, and it's too darn bad for them? What about 50/50 splits?

 

[invisible trousers]

Wearing lables that say "banning books is against the 1st amendment" is an extream answer to this issue.

labels, extreme

i think banning books is silly.

 

[Kroger99]

Community College.

Community Colleges usually has public funding so I think that no books would be banned.

Now for a completly private school....I would have to support the school's decission to ban the book even though I might disagree with it.

 

[Ryal Kane]

Apparantly Where's Waldo is high on requested banned book lists.
Figure that one out?

 

[Archivist]

Apparantly Where's Waldo is high on requested banned book lists.
Figure that one out?

It has been banned because in a beach scence that is depicted in the book you can see a woman who appears to be sunbathing topless. Of course, you have to look very to pick her out. After all, we must protect children from those evil cartoon breasts!

 

[mindalan]

OK. I wasn't clear on some things. My college is promoting the reading of banned books.
Wearing lables is not an extream answer, I just think it doesn't solve any problems.

 

[Archivist]

Among the 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 and 2000 were The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and--yes--Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford. The most challenged book in 2004 was The Chocolate War.

According to the American Library Association, books were most frequently challanged by parents, with reason given including sexually explicit material, offensive language, material considered unsuited to age group, occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism, violence, homosexual theme or promoting homosexuality, promoting a religious viewpoint, nudity, racism, sex education, and anti-family themes.

In 1953 one of America's greatest heros, Dwight D. Eisenhower, said "Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as any document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship." It is sad that today people seem all to willing to remove books they oppose from the shelves of public libraries. However, when we start removing books, are all that far from burning them?

 

[gwenmead]

I am not for the banning of books in any public setting (i.e., any place which receives a substantial amount of funding from government sources - libraries, public schools, publicly-funded colleges & universities, etc.). I believe the First Amendment covers this. A free press allows for the free exchange of ideas and information, whether anyone likes that information or not.

I dislike that private institutions would ban books, but that isn't up to me. As christianmarine mentioned, such decisions should be up to the governing entity in control of whatever the institution is (school, church, etc.).

The idea of putting bannings to public vote is an interesting one. However, my understanding is that if such a vote passed (that is, if a locality voted to ban certain books from, say, its library shelves) the result would be in violation of the First Amendment, and hence illegal, as the Constitution is currently written. (I'm happy to be further enlightened on this too, by anyone with a good grasp of Constitutional law.)

If we take it as read that people ban books because they feel that there's some kind of undesirable information in them, something they don't want spread around, or their kids exposed to, or whatever, I suspect there are still effective ways for books to be avoided. Not reading it, for one thing. Or not purchasing it. Or making sure you know what your kids are reading, and talk to them about it.

I'm sort of just reiterating ideas that have already been posted here though. Thanks for reading.

 

[Chajara]

You all realize that as soon as a book makes it onto that list, people will read it just to figure out why it got banned, right? I read "Heather Has Two Mommies" a few weeks ago when the library I worked at was doing Banned Books week.

 

[BourbonFromHeaven]

You all realize that as soon as a book makes it onto that list, people will read it just to figure out why it got banned, right? I read "Heather Has Two Mommies" a few weeks ago when the library I worked at was doing Banned Books week.

I actually just got done reading that over a few weeks ago. That was on the "No-no" list around here.

 

[Rae]

No books should be banned. Parents may restrict their own children's reading material, and people may certainly choose not to read any book they want, but don't keep me from being able to read them.