Posted on 09/11/2008 8:17:02 AM PDT by pissant
PALIN'S BOOK-BANNING EFFORTS, REDUX.... Here's what we know about Sarah Palin's interest in banning books. Time reported last week that Palin asked the Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, about the process for banning library books. Baker was reportedly "aghast" at the question. Soon after taking office, Palin, according to a New York Times report, fired Baker, and news reports from the time indicate that Palin thought Baker hadn't done enough to give her "full support" to the mayor.
Palin reversed course on Baker's dismissal after a local outcry, and later said the discussions about banning books were "rhetorical."
Yesterday, ABC News' Brian Ross moved the ball forward a bit, with an interesting report.
Ross emphasized an angle I previously hadn't heard much about. Palin was elected mayor thanks in large part to the strong backing of her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, which, right around the time Palin took office, "began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called 'Go Ask Alice,' and another one written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called 'Pastor, I am Gay.'"
Palin became mayor, her church was interested in censorship, and soon after, Palin asked a "rhetorical" question about how books might be excluded from the public library. When the librarian resisted, she was, at least initially, fired.
The line from the McCain campaign has been that Palin never had any interest whatsoever in banning library books. That seems increasingly difficult to believe.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
You’re funny. Cuz you can’t be serious.
Oh, ok. You were casting the first stone.
Thanks. That’s what I thought was happening...
I know more about Palin after two weeks than I know about Obama after two years.
This is not true. According to what I read, she was let go, along with several others who had been given their jobs by the previous administration. It was totally within Sarah's right to do so. The public support for the librarian, however, caused her to change her mind. I call that being responsive to the people.
Thus a community may demand of its public facilities that the are in conformance with those arbitrary standards the community chooses for itself. And that can include banning books for any reason whatsoever.
To do so is not an impairment or imperilment of individual liberty, for any book may be bought or borrowed or owned or shipped by anyone. Only from the inventory of the community library is the book banned.
It also means a community may ban things like sleeping in the library, ban the use of the library for viewing pornography, etc., or ban the copying of copyright material from its copiers. It can even ban folks who cause a disruption by their appearance, action or smell -- making some special allowance for such poor souls of the community who cannot without great cost or burden correct that appearance, or smell. This is all common sense. I heed not silly recent judicial rulings, because long term common sense must prevail or the nation fails.
Here's a quote from www.factcheck.org:
"She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term."
Ma is that you?
No, that should be left up to the people who put out books explaining to pre-K kids that sexual perversions are okay and that Heather needs two or three mommies. Anything--anything at all-- other than kids learning their moral beliefs from a ***GASP! *** Church.
How do you know how much time Palin spent with her kids or what she said to them???? Obviously, the entire family should be burned at the stake-- her 17 year old is pregnant!!!
So everyone should have free license to do as they please, but Sarah Palin should be pilloried because her daughter is having a baby! Hypocrites like you make me want to puke.
I heard that Sarah Palin once had an overdue library book in the seventh grade. I mean, what do the Republicans think they can force on us?
One of two conclusions follow: Either Sarah Palen can foresee the future, which would be very handy for a public official. Or, CBS has deliberately republished a claim which proved itself false. Which do you suppose is correct?
Congressman Billybob
Tenth in the ten-part series, "The Owner's Manual (Part 10) -- The Remaining Amendments"
We need some fake, but accurate documents now! The Freepers won’t catch us with that font thing this time!
One obvious clue that this list must have been cobbled together from some source other than discussions that may have taken place in Wasilla in 1996 is that several of its entries (most notably the books in
LOL.
I’d second that emotion.
Good post.
What if I’m the mayor and I go visit the library. I’m concerned about porn, have a discussion with the chief librarian who works for me, and ask how we’d go about banning porn from the library shelf if we had to.
The chief librarian adopts a holier-than-thou attitude with me, and begins giving me the eyebrow treatment while he indignantly and arrogantly proclaims the freedom of thought.
My tendency would be to drop him with a shot to the jaw.
Instead, I keep my own counsel. I go back to the office, and I begin getting rid of someone who obviously is not going to be supportive of my leadership.
Why do I do it?
Because he acted like an a$$; not because he might have had a differing opinion.
You know there used to be a time when Freerepublic actually frowned upon teen pregnancy, but as Freepers continue to abandon their conservative principles to swallow anything the GOP regurgitates, let us go back to a thread a long, long time ago June 29, 2008.
And let’s see what freepers had to say about teen mothers....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2038052/posts
But now that a Republican has a pregnant Teenager, we don’t dare question what type of values she’s teaching her kids.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
Hurry on over here, a PERFECT person has joined us and is busily throwing stones.
So Palin was concerned with what kids read? A lot of us have long wished that more public officials were so concerned.
I'd not thought to equate the two, thank you for making the comparison. I will add this along with the detail of Theodore Roosevelt to my ammo bag.
Thoughtful post.
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