by John Massoud

Earlier this month, a Warren County resident was complaining about a “small group of people who wish to ban books” from the Samuels Library. The writer talked about how many of the speakers that evening were not Warren County residents, or may have just purchased a library card so they could speak.

The writer may not be aware of this, but by that last statement, he was trying to suppress free speech. Several of the speakers who were supporting allowing these books in the children’s section of Samuels Library were trying to suppress free speech. One of the more egregious examples was a young lady who early in the meeting said that “churches should not be allowed to speak” because they “don’t pay taxes.” What she meant to say was that no person who attends a church should be allowed to speak. So people who attend church, who pay their taxes, should not be allowed to speak, yet anyone who agrees with those wanting to show porn to kids should be allowed to speak as they wish. This according to the logic of those who want to show porn to children.

People like the writer say they are 100 percent for free speech. Yet they want anyone who disagrees with them to not be allowed to speak. The writer does not support free speech. He supports free speech if you agree with him. With that being said, here are the books that many leftists want banned (and in some cases have gotten banned):

Of Mice and Men

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

To Kill a Mockingbird

Six books written by Dr. Seuss

For the record, I, like pretty much every person today, finds use of the N word despicable. Yet, the fact is that “Huck Finn” is an American classic. Should Huckleberry Finn be banned because Mark Twain used a word which may have been acceptable in the late 1800s but is now rightly seen as disgusting? Of course not. Dr. Seuss is coming under fire because some radicals’ sensibilities are offended over artwork. Dr. Seuss was the least racist person of his time.

Myself, and most people who were protesting the Warren County Board, while we believe that porn is wrong, were not talking about the library having porn. We were talking about having sexually suggestive materials in the children’s section at Samuels Library. The language in some of these books was so offensive that the Board had to ask speakers to stop reading from the books.

The good people who spoke up against Samuels Library showing porn to kids are the salt of the Earth. And as I said at the meeting — anyone who wants porn shown to kids is in serious need of prayer.

John Massoud is the chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party. This column was originally posted in The Bull Elephant. It is reposted here with permission.


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Comments

20 responses to “Speaking of Banning Books”

  1. WayneS Avatar

    I like it when people try to ban books. It helps me build my summer reading list…

    1. WayneS Avatar

      I think maybe you linked to the wrong article. I did not see any indication of anyone touting their success in that piece.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        It’s hidden. FIRE successfully had UofC develop the “model” of campus speech, no? And, then this happens.

        Life is tougher than it first looks.

    1. Nathan Avatar

      You think sexually explicit books with pictures and diagrams should be available in school libraries?

      I don’t favor book bans for the public, but I do think young children should be sheltered from graphic and explicit sexual material. This isn’t new. It’s been that way for ions.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Some of Dr Seuss’s art work for adults was erotic, and as creative as his kids books.

  2. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    Another form of censorship – rewriting books and plays because certain words are deemed offensive today.

  3. William Chambliss Avatar
    William Chambliss

    Mr. Massoud has an odd conception of who is trying to suppress free speech. Those wishing to “ban” books, and by this I presume he means prevent anyone of any age from accessing them, are defenders of free speech. Those wishing to preserve access to books are suppressing it.

    I don’t have a problem with a parent exercising oversight on what books his or her child reads, but I do have a problem with that parent exercising similar oversight over the choices I may make about my children. This does not appear to concern Massoud.

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    “We were talking about having sexually suggestive materials in the children’s section at Samuels Library. The language in some of these books was so offensive that the Board had to ask speakers to stop reading from the books.”

    Ok for kids but too racy to be read aloud in a Board meeting?

  5. Not Today Avatar
    Not Today

    If you gave me the same privileges as vocal, conservative families, I would ban Huck Finn in a heartbeat. It’s a white man’s (entertaining to be sure) version of southern life written with his version of Black dialect and includes a ‘flat’ Black male character who hasn’t the agency to tell the stupid white boy in his company what’s what. Fortunately for all, I don’t have the same privileges or power as the majority and have no desire to keep others’ kids from reading a limited and sanitized version of life in the post-Reconstruction South. I’m told it’s informative for many. Also, Dr. Seuss wasn’t ‘the least racist’. Far from it…https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/dr-seuss-got-away-anti-asian-racism-long-rcna381

    1. WayneS Avatar

      …includes a ‘flat’ Black male character who hasn’t the agency to tell the stupid white boy in his company what’s what.

      If that is what you got out of Huckleberry Finn then I suggest you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. Jim certainly tells and shows Huck “what’s what” throughout the story. In fact, it’s one of the primary themes of the book.

    2. It’s probably a good thing that you don’t have the power. Who wants to live in a world run that way?
      ___________
      https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/14/books/from-twain-a-letter-on-debt-to-blacks.html

      A letter by Mark Twain, written in the same year that ”The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in the United States, describes his offer to provide financial assistance to one of the first black students at Yale Law School and suggests that Twain was vigorously opposed to racism.

      Twain’s letter, addressed to the dean of the law school, offers to pay the expenses of the student, recently identified as Warner T. McGuinn, and explains some of Twain’s motivation.

      ”I do not believe I would very cheerfully help a white student who would ask a benevolence of a stranger,” Twain wrote Francis Wayland, the law school dean, on Dec. 24, 1885, ”but I do not feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, & the shame is ours, not theirs; & we should pay for it.”

      After graduating from Yale Law School in 1887, McGuinn edited a black newspaper in Kansas City, Kan. In 1890 he moved to Baltimore, where he became a lawyer. He was elected twice to the Baltimore City Council, and was a director of the local branch of the N.A.A.C.P. In 1917 he scored a major legal triumph by successfully challenging in Federal court a Baltimore city ordinance that mandated segregated city housing.

      1. Not Today Avatar
        Not Today

        No one is ever just one thing and Jim is absolutely ‘flat’ IME, sharing none of the motivations and thoughts of the grown black men in my life. He’s a middle aged white guy’s definition of fully fleshed out.

        1. The man who actually lived through what you can only imagine was able to find not only forgiveness but a lifelong friendship. Why should we give more weight to your opinion?

          1. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            The people who experienced the same form the branches of my family tree. I give weight to the stories they passed down. No one needs to give my opinion any weight at all. It is mine tho and I’m both entitled to share it and not likely to change it.

          2. I agree that in America, you should have the right to freely express your opinions. Yet, you say you would ban Twain’s opinion, and my right to hear it. The left spent 3 years banning any opinion about Covid that didn’t conform to the flawed science of Fauci, and fired many who wouldn’t conform. Leftists routinely ban conservative speech on our universities.

            When do you plan to allow others to partake in this free speech you hold so dear?

          3. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            Fortunately for you, NOT TODAY /= Government prohibition. You and I have both exercised our right to speak….FREELY.

          4. Not Today Avatar
            Not Today

            Fortunately for you, NOT TODAY /= Government prohibition. You and I have both exercised our right to speak….FREELY.

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