The left crying about book banning.

Florida State Department of Education has been removing books from schools that are not age appropriate. Should you really be teaching castration and genital mutilation to first graders?

Well the Book publishers, Authors, and Progressives are claiming that this is book banning. Where were they when Amazon, Barnes Noble and others were banning Conservative books?

Look what I found.

Liberals

What grosses me out about you is that you’ll wear $28 dollar enamel pins that proudly yell “I read banned books,” while participating in a walkout where you’re effectively banning a book. I’ve heard a lot of great phrases about liberal book bans, like “It’s not censorship, it’s creating friction” or “It’s not a ban, it’s an economic consequence for bad behavior.” “There are other books by non-problematic authors that do the same work.” “We can’t wipe a book from existence, we are just one lil’ ol’ shop.”

At least the conservatives have the fortitude to admit they’re talking about tossing books on the fire as a method of protecting their values. I’ll take an honest dumbass over a smart liar. 

Just own it. Recognize that you can’t crow about intellectual freedom and banned books while also banning books. Maybe you feel like it’s justified, and maybe it IS. I’m not here to argue that, I’m here to say that you need to accept that you ARE banning books as a means to an end. You ARE sacrificing one ideal, intellectual freedom, for another. If your weapon of choice is a book ban, treat that shit like an atomic weapon, acknowledge what you’re doing, make peace with it, and respect that weapon’s terrifying power. 

Just don’t be shocked by the fallout when the winds change and the tactics you used are employed to censor books you really like. And don’t pretend like what you’re doing is no big deal. It feels so good that it justifies punishing curious readers...

Your bans also seem to have more connection to writer behavior than the contents of particular books. Sherman Alexie and Junot Diaz are writers whose books were long-touted and have since been removed from circulation in a lot of places. Books by Andy Ngo and Woody Allen were banned almost entirely by people who had not read them and were basing the bans on the behavior of the writers leading up to that point. It’s not about the books, it’s about the author's behavior in the world outside the books. You found a way to punish the writer, and it feels so good that it justifies punishing curious readers and removing their chance to judge for themselves. Those folks are just the eggs you've got to break to make your utopic omelette, right?

The most distasteful facet of your bans is that while conservatives are always crying about the children, you target books aimed at adults, which means you’re treating adults like children. It means your bans come with this moral and intellectual superiority. You figured out this book was bad or inaccurate or that the author was a bad person, and in your infinite wisdom you’re rescuing me from needing to make the same discovery. You act like I’m supposed to be thankful. My hero. My savior.