Banning Our Freedoms

After the death of the Assault Weapons Ban some bloggers have started looking at other constitutional infringements.

Gunner at no quarters blog sends this:

Saturday, September 25, 2004
Freedom means saying I can read what I want to read

Gun bans, Dog bans, and book bans. They all have one thing in common. They are bans forced upon you by other "enlightened individuals". I cannot find one good example of where people banned something of their own for "the good of the people". It always seems to be someone else's items that are banned.

Well here we are and September 25 is approaching fast. This day had little meaning to me until I read that September 25 is Banned Book week. The first time I was exposed to banned books was in my high school library. While technically they were not banned because the library had them, they simply were not for the students to read. Strange logic, books in a library that are not to be read. The Librarian was a hard core religious individual and she felt that her views made her the chief protector of our young and fragile minds.

More than books were banned restricted, she had also self-banned several magazines. Psychology today(SEX), Rolling Stone magazine(DRUGS), and Cosmopolitan(FEMINISM) were not put out for us to see, again to "protect us". Since she was the librarian she had the duty to order books. She had the duty to order a full range of books and in this she failed miserably. I found this out because of a CB radio. The library used the Dewey decibel system and even a laymen could see that the section on religion was well stocked with many new books. The other sections were less well stocked as my story will show.

I got my grubby little hands on an old CB radio and thought I would set it up in my room to play around with. Only one problem. I had no idea even where to start on wiring the darn thing. So my answer would have to come from books. Going to the science section I found three books that dealt with electronics and electricity. Three!. The section on religion was a full section, yet electrical science was three individual tomes. Hell the rest of the science section was pretty barren itself.

So with the three in hand I looked at the print dates and checked out the newest one. Thumbing through it I cam upon a section that has stuck with me to this day. To set the scene better this all occurred in 1985/86 in Butler county Kentucky. While a small county it was not backwards much. But it also was not a very forward moving county and this one book became to represent the whole problem of the rural mentality to me.

The part that was so strange to read was a section on TV. You know them TV thingys. The little square box in the corner with real moving pictures in it. The part of the section that was seared(thanks Kerry) into my head said this
"TV. While a useful laboratory tool, they will never be commerciably feasible".
Even then I had to take the book home to show my mom out of utter disbelief. The newest book on electronics in our library was pre-TV.

The banning of books, and its related belief of only buying "good books" goes hand in hand with the damaging of knowledge and social progression. That was also the year I found my first banned list. It was in a magazine and I realized I had read about 10 of the hundred listed. Being the bull headed little shit that I was, I started to try to read as many as I could. I soon found that some of those books should have be banned just because they sucked, but some were pretty good. I never did get all 100 read. In my life I think I have read about half of the list. Fully read. Not just picked up and dropped.

So because Banned Book week is coming up I want to do something to fight ignorance and just utter damn bigotry. I will buy a book on the banned list and send them to the first person that emails me their address.(Will take first person to reply after September 25 during Banned Book Week)

If a person does not like a book for their children then opt out. Most schools will bend over backwards to not upset parents, but the second you tell me that I cannot read something then you have stepped over the line.

I have one question. Number 87 is "Where's Waldo?". Please someone tell me what messed up mind would object to a picture book of a geeky looking guy in a picture?

Here is the list of most banned books:

Please, with exception of series, pick one you have not read.(If a book is not easily available please pick two alternative choices for ease of purchase)

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Witches by Roald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Goats by Brock Cole
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
Blubber by Judy Blume
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Jack by A.M. Homes
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Carrie by Stephen King
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
Jumper by Steven Gould
Christine by Stephen King
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier