{"id":1906671,"date":"2023-03-29T14:11:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/there-are-no-banned-books\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T14:17:14","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:17:14","slug":"there-are-no-banned-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/there-are-no-banned-books\/","title":{"rendered":"There Are No Banned Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthere-are-no-banned-books%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906671&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>While checking out the \u201cbanned and challenged\u201d display at my local Barnes &#038; Noble recently, I was reminded that the entire kerfuffle is a giant racket. For publishers and booksellers, \u201cbanned\u201d books are likely a money-making racket. Virtually every allegedly \u201cbanned\u201d book on the display table is already a massive (sometimes generational) bestseller. Not that this reality stops authors like Jodi Picoult, whose books dot virtually every bookstore in the country, from running around <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/author-jodi-picoult-denounces-book-bans-after-florida\/story?id=98151365\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pretending<\/a> their novels are \u201cbanned\u201d because a sliver of taxpayers are no longer on the hook to buy them.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <span class=\"iq3uEPgN8BwhjKRxlZGMYdOyCvFLXmb\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I was at B&#038;N the other day checking out the *banned* book section. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yqFz6pBFp5\">pic.twitter.com\/yqFz6pBFp5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/status\/1639232671866933248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>For the left, the banned book claim is a political racket, allowing them to feign indignation over the alleged \u201cauthoritarianism\u201d of Republicans who don\u2019t want kids reading identitarian pseudohistories or books depicting oral sex, rape, violence, or gender dysphoria in their schools.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-644525047\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-06425dfb3be642fe74a1f5df308fe711 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-06425dfb3be642fe74a1f5df308fe711\"><\/div>\n<p>Yet, major media now regularly contend, as indisputable fact, that \u201cbook bans\u201d are in place. The claim is embedded in the Democrat\u2019s daily rhetoric. After the mass shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, we were not plunged into another inane discussion about \u201cstochastic terrorism\u201d or political violence, but rather a preposterous comparison of Tennessee\u2019s \u201cbook bans\u201d and lax gun control. As Liz Cheney <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/3922464-liz-cheney-need-to-spend-less-time-banning-books-more-time-stopping-horrific-gun-violence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a>, \u201cif we really want to keep our children safe, we need to spend less time banning books and more time stopping the horrific gun violence in our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Books are banned in Tennessee in the same way a person can\u2019t say the word \u201cgay\u201d in Florida. It\u2019s a myth. Yet, here is a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/03\/23\/1164284891\/book-bans-school-libraries-florida\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">headline<\/a> from NPR: \u201cPlot twist: Activists skirt book bans with guerrilla giveaways and pop-up libraries.\u201d In the piece, the reader learns that with \u201ca record number of book bans\u201d on the horizon, \u201csome activists are finding creative ways to make banned books available to young readers anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActivists\u201d <em>buying<\/em> books at a local Barnes &#038; Noble, where an endless supply exists, and handing them to other people\u2019s children against the wishes of parents isn\u2019t so much \u201ccreative\u201d as it is creepy. NPR makes it sound as if these people were risking their lives trading <em>Samizdat<\/em> one step ahead of the Secret Police. Any dope with a car, a bus pass, a bicycle, legs, or an internet connection can hand some impressionable kid softcore porn. Because there are no banned books.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if conservative activists set up \u201cpop-up\u201d libraries around the corner from schools in progressive districts handing out Huck Finn and books celebrating the Second Amendment or the superiority of traditional families, one imagines National Public Radio would find the guerrilla effort less charming.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2a0355a95b570d30fe784732c887ac85 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2a0355a95b570d30fe784732c887ac85\"><\/div>\n<p>One New York Times columnist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/28\/opinion\/parents-rights-republicans-florida.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">argues<\/a> that parents who vote for legislators that temper the cultural Marxist agenda in schools are engaging in a \u201cstate-sanctioned heckler\u2019s veto.\u201d So much for \u201cdemocracy,\u201d I guess. It is true that leftists, who run virtually every major school district in the nation, don\u2019t need any laws or vetoes to dictate curriculums. But, of course, most schools <em>are<\/em> run by the state. How else are parents supposed to initiate change? Well, they aren\u2019t, right? That\u2019s the point. The contemporary left doesn\u2019t believe that parents have any say in which state-run school their children attend or what they are taught in them. Who\u2019s the authoritarian, again?<\/p>\n<p>Teacher-union types like to argue that parental rights bills are tantamount to telling a doctor how to operate on a patient. A more apt analogy is to say that Democrats want to force patients to undergo elective surgeries performed by untrained quacks. Parental rights bills don\u2019t instruct teachers on methods, they only stop strangers from exposing kids to revisionist histories and ideas about sexuality and ideologies that conflict with their beliefs. Then again,\u00a0even if parents who don\u2019t want their prepubescent kids indoctrinated with these ideas are in the minority, why should they be forced to accept instruction or books that have nothing to do with genuine civics or a well-rounded education?<\/p>\n<p>When the government restricts free association in the marketplace, or giant tech companies are engaged in a concerted effort to censor ideas and news, we have a reason to worry about the state of free speech. When a heckler\u2019s veto that dominates universities makes it virtually impossible to have an open discourse on campuses, we have reason to worry. \u201cBook bans,\u201d however, are just curriculum choices leftists don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>It is certainly true that sometimes priggish moralists are overzealous in their targeting of books, sometimes the bans are plain stupid, sometimes they are political, and sometimes they are initiated by left-wing administrations (as has been the case for years). But, for the most part, \u201cbook ban\u201d is just a euphemism for progressive administrators and teachers losing some of their power over <em>your <\/em>kids. While parents are compelled to live with the devastating professional failures of a teacher-union-dominated monopoly that struggles to teach basic math, reading, writing, and science, there is no reason for them to accept political indoctrination, as well.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-79e26d0b0cb40bc660cc6cc68ca87202 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-79e26d0b0cb40bc660cc6cc68ca87202\"><\/div>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-07a8746f89e511e55d88c769067d13ba fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-07a8746f89e511e55d88c769067d13ba\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">   David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-tags bdr-top-black mt-30 mt-sm-60 pt-15 pt-md-45\">\n<ul class=\"list-unstyled d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center mb-0 mx-n10 p-0\">\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/barnes-noble\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Barnes &#038; Noble<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/book-bans\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">book bans<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/culture\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Culture<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/literature\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">literature<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/liz-cheney\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Liz Cheney<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/new-york-times\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">New York Times<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/npr\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">NPR<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While checking out the \u201cbanned and challenged\u201d display at my local Barnes &amp; Noble recently, I was reminded that the entire kerfuffle is a giant racket. For publishers and booksellers, \u201cbanned\u201d books are likely a money-making racket. Virtually every allegedly \u201cbanned\u201d book on the display table is already a massive (sometimes generational) bestseller. Not that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1906672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[7066,8755],"class_list":["post-1906671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-banned","tag-books"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}