Even I was surprised to see that the following books were banned (or attempts were made to ban them) once upon a time in a state or county far, far away (or maybe not so far):
Gone With The Wind
Forrest Gump
Lord of the Rings (actually burned as a Satanic book, something it shares, I suppose with the Qu’ran)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (banned in Boulder, CO no less)
Usually when I think about freedom, one of the ones I cherish the most is the opportunity to read what I want regardless of whether someone else approves or disapproves of my choices. The public library was as much a sacred place for me growing up as church. Yet for a “free country” the United States has a well known history of banning or restricting access to books, even in recent times.
Iconic American books as famous as Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, The Leaves of Grass and The Grapes of Wrath have all been banned at one time or another. However what is surprising is the number of small-minded morons who have successfully banned books such Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Did You See, a book for young children (by the Texas School Board in 2010 because they thought the author was a Marxist) and Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl (also in 2010, by a county in Virginia).
It seems everyday someone makes a complaint about why certain books should not be available because they find something about it that doesn’t agree with their most cherished beliefs or prejudices. But isn’t the entire point of freedom that we get to make those decisions for ourselves? That we don’t turn away from books with ideas that we don’t hold, but engage them and their ideas and make up our own minds?
I despise Ayn Rand as an author, but I would never tell someone her books were off limits to them merely because of my superior moral judgment about their merits. Nor would I seek to ban the sacred books of any religion as this petitioner would have us do to the Qu’ran Qur’an [note: thanks to Hurria for correcting my spelling]. I wouldn’t ban Mein Kampf or Glenn Beck’s latest tripe, either.
When you ban books, you ban speech and you ban ideas. When you ban ideas you effectively neuter our right to free speech, not only for the author of the book but also for those who would choose to read it to discover what they might learn.
Yet, we are faced with a number of candidates on the right for political office this year who would joyfully and wholeheartedly limit your right to read what you want given the opportunity, as well as a number of other rights you now possess or for some, hope to receive. In some states this is already a regular occurrence. Many candidates support the elimination of net neutrality, a threat your ability to access and read the blogs and online publications of your choice.
The Republicans are constantly concerned that Democrats are going to take away their “rights” by which they usually mean the right to own an unregistered handgun or other firearm. Funny, though, how they have so little concern for a freedom that is far more important to our society: the freedom to think what we want, to say what we want and to learn what we want.
The banning of books invariably destroys that right, that essential liberty which is fundamental to our society. Just ask anyone who has lived in a country where books and newspapers and magazines are censored. They will tell you that limiting what you can read or watch or learn is the easiest way to lose all your freedoms.
