9.28.2005

Four Hundred and Fifty One Degrees of Censorship

Censorship is alive and well in the US of A. Norwood school books banned, destroyed.

Complaints about profanity in the book, "Bless Me, Ultima," (now #75 on the List of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000) which is on a required reading list prompted the school superintendent to confiscate the books and turn them over to the parents, who promptly burned them. The story is still developing at WikiNews.

Do these parents think that they've destroyed every copy of the book and that they're children are now safe from the book's contents? That their children couldn't get a copy of the book off, say, Amazon or eBay? That their kids won't be exposed to the same concepts addressed in the book? I know if I were a high school student just starting to realize that adults don't act in your best interest, especially when they say they are, and that this book banning would make me be very interested in what frightened them so much that they burned the only copies of the book in town. Maybe that's just me but damn, if they're so scared of it then there's gotta be something worth reading in it. And that's why censorship is a massive waste of time, it fosters more dissent.

And censorship is really nothing but manifested fear.
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