Supreme Court Justice Breyer Retiring At End Of Term
Rumor is now being reported as reality as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is set to retire at the end of The Court’s term.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer will retire at the end of the current Supreme Court term, according to a source familiar with his plans, giving President Biden the chance to make his mark on the Supreme Court by nominating the first African-American female justice and reinforcing the court’s liberal minority.
Breyer, 83, is the court’s oldest justice and he has been under unprecedented pressure to retire while Democrats have narrow control of the Senate, which must confirm Supreme Court nominees. The current term ends at the end of June.
NBC and CNN first reported the news, which had been expected.
Breyer was chosen for the court in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, a year after Clinton picked Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He is known as a pragmatic liberal, more moderate than others on the left and willing to search for compromise among the court’s ideologically divided justices.
The just-completed term was one of his most productive and significant in his long career, receiving some of the top assignments from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
Breyer wrote the majority opinion when the court rejected the third challenge at the Supreme Court to the Affordable Care Act. Earlier, he authored the court’s decision that G.oogle did not violate copyright law in a multibillion-dollar showdown with Oracle, a highly watched case in the tech world.
And he wrote the court’s defense of the First Amendment rights of public school students in a case involving a high school’s punishment of a cheerleader for a profane rant on social media.
Biden moves quickly to make his mark on federal courts after Trump’s record judicial nominations
Breyer’s decision to leave gives Biden a historic opportunity but also could prompt a monumental battle. Democrats control exactly half of the Senate’s 100 votes, with Vice President Harris holding the tiebreaking key.
Recent Supreme Court confirmations have been largely party-line votes, with a Republican White House and GOP senate in charge.
That is partly why Breyer has been under pressure from liberal activist groups and some Democratic senators to retire now, although the White House has been careful not to pile on.
When does the term end and what are the odds that the GOP somehow finds a way to block Biden ever getting a nominee seated?Report
The term usually ends late June to July depending on the docket. Thanks to Mitch McConnell if all 50 Democrats are in line there’s nothing the Republicans can do to block the appointment. Biden is probably going to get a nominee to the Senate in the next month or less, and Judiciary will hold hearings expeditiously.Report
Well, that is how it SHOULD go but would it surprise you if McConnell pulls some sort of shenanigans to delay this into the new year if he eyes a potential Senate majority by that point?Report
I’m not sure what those would be. Republicans control none of the committees in the Senate, so they can’t deny them hearings as they did Garland. McConnell also quietly did away with blue slips under Trump, so even if the nominees is from a Republican state that person’s senators can’t object publicly. I can’t find anything on whether a senator can pocket hold a supreme court justice like they can a cabinet appointment, but I don’t so since McConnell’s nominees would have been held by Democrats.
I may be missing something, but I think McConnell’s maneuvers the last few years may have backed him into a corner.Report
Sure, I could imagine Mitch doing some arcane parliamentary trick if he has one… if only to make it harder than necessary.
But I’m not entirely sure he isn’t very happy with the corner he’s ‘painted himself into’ … I have no idea whom Biden will appoint.
I expect the usual grandstanding by Senators… the usual demurring by candidates… and a simple party line vote like the framers intended.
Basically absent a McCauliffe-like gaffe will probably be as exciting as the Barret nomination. Does CRT live loudly within the new candidate?
I assume the Mainline Democratic wing owns the Nominee process, right?Report
If *I* were going to play this, I’d quietly step back and say “have at it”.
Let Biden nominate someone.
Will it be someone that the White House Staff will be disappointed by and will make for boring hearings?
Will it be someone at the top of the White House Staff’s list and thus will make for *AWESOME* hearings?
Who in the Democratic coalition will feel betrayed?Report
Yeah, the last line of my comment is the main question.
But honestly, as I look at it… I don’t really see any gain for the Dems in going ‘smol’ … unless their internal polling suggests ’22 is up for grabs still.
Does anyone think that? [seriously, I’m really bad at predicting these things].
So If I game it out on team Blue, I’d go big and damn the torpedoes. What’s the worst it could do? Turn a couple/few random seats in the House? I guess someone has to do the math on the Senate. Which brings up a good point… if you have the Presidency but can only keep one house of congress – the only one you really want is the senate, right? If you have to choose?Report
If Biden’s nominee went to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford: “Biden nominated an out of touch elitist!!”
If Biden’s nominee went to a school but those three: “Biden nominated a subpar lawyer that lacks the intellect to be on the Supreme Court.”
Plus Senator Blackburn will bang on the nominee’s wrap sheet which all turned out to be parking violations that are at least fifteen years old.Report
If Biden’s nominee went to a school but those three: “Biden nominated a subpar lawyer that lacks the intellect to be on the Supreme Court.”
That’s just…look, if Biden should pick a nominee who isn’t from Harvard or Yale, no one on the Right is going to complain about his lack of elite credentials. That’s a profound misreading of your opponents. Yeah, they’ll find things to complain about, and some of them will be silly or no-win, but not being elite enough? This is like the earlier comment (I forget whose) about some terrible thing the Court would do: you’ve got to wait for the actual scenario to get angry about what happens. You can’t complain about things people haven’t done yet.Report
If they’re a Black woman, you know damn well her “qualifications” will be under attack.Report
If that’s true you should be able to prove it. If not, you should take it back.Report
It’s a prediction, which, by definition, can’t be proved in advance. So there’s no need to “take it back” until and unless future events falsify it. And who elected you Hall Monitor?Report
It’s not really a prediction, at least not at the subtext level. Kazzy is implying that attacks on the hypothetical candidate’s qualifications would be because of her race and/or gender — there won’t be any direct evidence of that anymore than there ever is.Report
Well, if you want me to find critics who say this hypothetical justice is unqualified because she’s black and/or female, I concede I probably can’t meet that standard beyond nut-picking.
But what if I found critics who did invoke her race and/or gender? What if I found critics who levied criticisms her way that they didn’t levy towards white and/or male justices? Would that suffice?
For instance, would the critiques below suffice to say that Sotomayor was attacked differently with regards to her qualifications?
https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/jonathan-turley-thought-sonia-sotomayor-wasnt-smart-enough-to-be-on-the-supreme-court/
https://lawandcrime.com/crazy/law-prof-declares-second-rate-intellect-sonia-sotomayor-only-on-supreme-court-for-her-latinaness/
https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/27/shapiro.scotus.identity/index.htmlReport
[Comment in mod due to links]Report
Taken care of.Report
Or we could recall how Republican Lindsay Graham found it important to know how (((Elena Kagen))) spends Christmas Day.Report
You know, I just looked into this, and this might be the worst-faith statement on the thread. He was questioning her about her positions on terrorism and enemy combatants. Around minute 18, they had a funny exchange. There was nothing anti-Semitic about it, and you shouldn’t have implied that. People should watch maybe 16:10 through 26:36 to hear two public servants intelligently discussing law and policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ac0AcPQLt4Report
Shapiro pointed out that if she weren’t a Latino, she wouldn’t be on the short list.
Reading her wiki, he’s right. She has openly admitted her test scores weren’t good and AA got her into Princeton as an undergrad. She has openly admitted her test scores weren’t good and AA got her into Princeton law school. Her grades and performance have reflected this at various points.
She got a job the prominent New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. By her own later evaluation, her performance there was lacking.
For comparison, Roberts argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in 25 of them. He represented 19 states in United States v. Microsoft.
So he’s always been known for his extreme brilliance and his legal mind while she has not.
Ergo yes, critics needed to take a different tactic; Arguing that he had never been a Judge. (Team Red tried to make him one and Team Blue killed his nomination via inaction, aka Garland.)Report
I think your basic take is right. It’s about the politics not some principle. If Biden makes good on his promise for this nomination I’m pretty sure we’re about to watch the following:
D: We have nominated this judge, based on race and sex! It is a great day for equality in America!
R: Judge is incompetent. You just nominated based on race and sex.
D: How dare you make such an outrageous racist/sexist assertion!
In fairness there’s a similar version of this around religion. It goes something like:
R: We have nominated a deeply religious judge, dedicated to judge’s ultra-traditional sect.
D: You just want a religious zealot willing to take us back to the stone age on sex and reproductive rights!
R: How dare you voice such bitter and vicious religious intolerance!
In the long run we’re mostly talking about the wrong things, at least if we care about judicial competence.Report
To be fair, the first statement doesn’t imply the 2nd.
To be fairer, a “best person” eval probably gets different results than “best person who is [x][y][z]”.
Now for the Supremes, I can argue it either way.
1) It’s a very important job, we need the best of the best and race/gender doesn’t matter. If that results in uniformity then it does.
2) It’s very important that [x] have some representation on the court so their voice can be heard and group [x] can feel represented.Report
1 What should be the obvious problem is there is no “best person” for a job like this with objective measures. There are lots of good candidates all of whom could do the job.
2 also misses. It’s not just so a group can get their feelz and be reped. Different backgrounds offer different insights. Good to have more smart eyes with a variety of talents, knowledge and history .Report
Just to make it clear here, my comment was about the spin in how these nominations are sold to voters. I’m not saying they’re right. Quite the opposite.Report
Then the demand for proof is even sillier, if that’s what it takes.Report
Just recenty, we saw Senator Marsha Blackburn (QANON-TN) attack a black nominee to the 6th Circuit over his “rap sheet.” His rap sheet consists of three speeding tickets, one of which was for speeding 5 mph over the speed limit.Report
There’s also the failure to appear in court and apparently driving without a license. If your media source deliberately excluded those, they’re playing you. If you deliberately excluded those, you’re playing us.Report
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/biden-judicial-nominee-grilled-amid-objections-by-gop-home-state-senators-2022-01-12/
I’m sure his age and experience mattered more to the senator who voted to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who’s just 7 years older and had 3 years on the federal bench before her nomination.Report
Happy to do so once we see how it plays out.Report
If it’s so obvious that it’ll happen, could you at least cite some examples that demonstrate that black female judges get more scrutiny? You’re sitting there with venom pouring out of your mouth saying it’s because something’s about to strike you, but it looks more like you’re just spewing poison.Report
How do you think this plays out?
Like, you imagine that some detached person will say, “Gosh, Kazzy was unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Republicans are bigoted towards women and people of color.
So I guess its not true then.”
The Republicans have established their brand identity. Asking for proof is like asking for proof that Axe Body Spray is aimed at teenage boys.
The people you are trying to persuade don’t just read Ordinary Times. They see Fox News, Tucker Carlson and tweets from Stephen Miller,. They see Breitbart and see all the white nationalists who talk about BlackOnBlack crime.
They can put all the pieces together.
You’re treading water in the Pacific demanding proof that water is wet.Report
I’m not gaming anything out; the comment just raised my ire. I’m guessing my comment raised your ire, and you weren’t anticipating changing anyone’s mind by your comment. You and I agree that the truth is worth defending; you just happen to be mistaken about what is the truth.Report
Sorry to raise your ire, but did you Republicans really think that there wouldn’t be consequences for the decades of your actions?
You guys built this brand of winking and playing footsie with white supremacists and neo not sees and Confederate Lost Causers, and now you get irritated that we make the obvious conclusions?Report
You’re consistent on this topic, as am I. If we were one conversation away from agreement I’d be up for it, but you and I have gone over this dozens of times. I’m going to sit this one out. As you noted, we all know how this plays out. I got in my objection and I do hope that Kazzy will take his comments more seriously in the future.Report
Venom? Yep, that sounds like me.Report
You just made an accusation of racism and sexism in our modern society which takes such things very seriously. That’s venomous, yeah.Report
Pearls to clutch or fainting couch?Report
Yes, it is the accusation of racism and sexism that is the venom in modern society… not the racism or the sexism.
Ruh roh… I’m a teacher and may have just made someone feel guilty on account of their race. QUICK! Throw me in CRT jail.Report
Look, Kazzy, racism was fixed in 1965, and anybody who complains about it afterward is just trying to destroy free speech. Subscribe to my Substack!Report
It’s not the only venom, but it is a venom, yes. We can debate who produces more poison, but the attitude contributes to the total amount of poison out there. It’s up to historians to attempt to find the inflection point.Report
So how do you propose we attacked the venom of racism and sexism without talking about and describing racism and sexism? That’s what the CRT fight is about – don’t talk about America’s racial history and how it influences todays society.Report
I’d say establish some credibility on the subject. I mostly vote Democrat and I treat most claims of various isms with the same skepticism I used to treat GOP talk about family values. All back before their conversion from Christianity to the Gods of amoral used car salesmen of course.
It’s ironic you bring up CRT, like it’s some good fight, and not actually about siphoning money to otherwise unemployable activists in the DEI industrial complex.Report
Through race/sex neutral policies.
As for CRT, you’ve made two implicit assumptions, that there is a major problem with race in our country today and that CRT goes no further than exposing the historical origin of that racism. Since I’m not convinced that differences in outcome are proof of racism, I see a lot fewer signs of racism in today’s culture. And CRT often implies that the principles and documents upon which we were founded are so flawed as to prevent the elimination of racism.Report
Fixed it for you. I also disagree that CRT implies, much less declares, that our founding documents and principles are so flawed that racism can never be fixed. CRT quite rightly shows in those documents and the systems springing from them how racism shaped, and still shapes the nation. CRT also invites us to make changes to eliminate those flaws. Its like how the 13th Amendment corrected the evil of counting blacks as only 3/5ths of a person. That was never meant to be the end of the discussion, but a significant necessary step.Report
I always hated “fixed it for you” comments. I think in this case it’s very telling, though. It demonstrates that you reject my explanation of my thought process – in other words, you think I’m writing in bad faith. Or at least you’d rather accuse me of bad faith than respond to the idea I presented. Either way, it’s not a good sign for any chance of dialogue.
Also, the three-fifths compromise wasn’t an evil, and wasn’t about race. You should read more history.Report
Over and over and over I and others have presented you significant, numerical evidence that both lack of equality of opportunity and lack of equality of outcome exist in this country for racial and ethnic minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ people. And over and over you have rejected that evidence, sometimes politely, sometimes impolitely. Judging you by both your words and your actions you don not want to be convinced that racism exists, much less that its a problem. That’s my experience of years of interacting with you, and watching others interact with you. So yes, on this topic I do believe you are writing in bad faith. You are no doubt since in your beliefs and conclusions, but you are no more open to changing your beliefs on this then you are on abortion.
As to the 3/5ths compromise, it was done to keep southern states from garnering overwhelming political power since if all the slaves had been counted as full persons their population would have dwarfed the northern states. What makes it evil and ALSO about race is that it was only applied to enslaved black people. That it served two purposes is, incidental, intersectionality and one of the core principals that CRT seeks to elide.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/three-fifths-compromiseReport
You overestimate the quality of the evidence you present. Like the 3/5 compromise. I’ve double-checked and it had nothing to do with race. It also made the South weaker. Do you oppose that? Do you think the South should have been stronger? If I could believe you’d screened the evidence you present, I’d give it more weight. But these things topple over upon reflection. Like, how can I take your assessment of CRT seriously when you don’t understand founding documents and history?Report
Who do you believe the 3/5ths of all other persons applies to?Report
It’s funny how you equate blacks with slaves and hate the compromise that led to the Lincoln presidency.Report
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/Report
Wow, you’ve “double-checked.”Report
The 3/5th’s made the south weaker??? Wha huh??? That is actual nonsense. Next you will say that giving someone 100k would make them poorer.Report
in one sense he’s not wrong. Had the slaves been counted as full persons the souths proportional representation in the House would have been significantly greater, and probably drive policy choices and legislation that would have kept slavery intact for decades beyond its end.Report
Only in the sense that sophistry is a tool of bad debate. If only win 10k in vegas i didnt’ lose because i didn’t win 15k.
What’s sort of crazy about some of these debates is often the people at the time directly said they wanted this or that for power and to rule over others. They weren’t shy about their motives back then.Report
True – like the “states rights” debate that swirls around the Civil War. As soon as you ask “States Rights To What” defenders always withdraw because they don’t want to state publicly what the southern states plainly described in their articles of secession.Report
This is obvious stuff. The northern states forced the 3/5 deal on the south, which opposed it. Do you think the south opposed their own power? More people means more representatives, and more electoral votes. The south would never lose in Congress or presidential races. A basic Google search would show you that you’re completely misunderstanding the situation.Report
I didn’t hear that the deal was “forced” as much as the South was not inclined to join the Union (over the issue of slavery) and wanted slaves to count for representation in the Congress and the North, understandably, did not want slaves to count toward representation given that they would not be getting representation.
And so the 3/5ths compromise was just that.Report
I think the problem is how badly you misunderstand history. There was no equation between representation and number of voters, because there was no assumption of universal voting. Women and children were counted as full people because they were citizens, but they weren’t voters. Indians weren’t counted at all because they weren’t citizens. Slaves would reasonably fall into the same category as women and children. The slave count was diminished by 40% in order to reduce the influence of voters in slave states.
NB: That was a reply to Greg, but somehow ended up here.Report
GeeZus. Compromise is the key. Some wanted 5/5th’s for slaver states. They compromised on giving slaver 3/5ths of what they wanted they gave them greater power due to owning the enslaved. Southerners at times explicitly said they wanted to be ensured they would always have a majority in at least one house. It was negotiation and compromise so i dont’ know how the North forced it on the South. They all signed on.Report
This is really really simple. Are you hung up on my use of the term “forced”? Call it “pressured”. The point is, the default position would be 5/5, but the South accepted 3/5 which was a reduction in their power. So when Philip referred to
“the evil of counting blacks as only 3/5ths of a person”
he was mistaken both in confusing blacks and slaves and in thinking that “only” 3/5 was somehow an affront. Note that I didn’t choose this example; Philip did. It exemplifies the kind of partially-understood stuff he considers evidence but anyone without confirmation bias would reject after a moment’s thought.Report
There was no such thing as “the default position.” There was only the southern position and the northern position, and whatever they could hammer out. The south wanted to count beings that it regarded as property — like sheep or horses — as “persons” for purposes of representation, and for no other purpose. So 5/5ths. The northern position was that you count “persons,” not property. So 0/5ths. Neither side wanted to limit representation to the number of potential voters — women and children being familiar and plentiful creatures in both sections, and free blacks pretty insignificant in either section. So no need to squabble over this.
The south got 3/5 of what it wanted and the north got 2/5 of what it wanted. The south came out ahead. As to whether counting slaves as 3/5 of a person is an “affront,” requires us to think about who feels affronted and why.Report
The slavers’ position was that the slaves were counted as people when it benefited the slavers ( for apportionment), but not when it didn’t (for voting).
Were the slaves allowed to vote, it certainly would have “made the South stronger” but not the way the slavers wanted.Report
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/Report
“It also made the South weaker.”
That’s kind of a strange assertion since the alternative presented was to not count slaves at all.Report
I’m old enough to remember how the Right treated Sonia Sotomayor.Report
I assume you’re referring to the “wise Latina” bit. I think she was in the wrong there. If she said that her race and sex wasn’t a factor in her ability, she would have been fine. She said it made her better. Maybe you think she was targeted for her race and sex, and that would be consistent with Chip’s view of the Republican Party. I think she was targeted for her prejudice on matters of race and sex, and that’s consistent with my view of the Republican Party.Report
Yes, we know, women or minorities being proud of their backgrounds and pointing out how it’s a good thing to have diverse backgrounds on the Supreme Court as opposed to a bunch od old white people (which the Supreme Court has historically been) is proof she’s the real racist, because as we know, America is post-racial and color blind and the only problem is woke racists who want white people to feel guilty.Report
As per my comment to Kazzy above, it’s not the only problem, but it is a problem. I don’t care if more Frenchmen hate Germany for WWI or more Germans hate France for the Versailles Treaty, on any particular day in the 1920’s. I care where things are headed.Report
Especially if she calls herself a wise woman of color.Report
I don’t care if he nominates an African-American woman or an Asian-American woman so long as she is a former prosecutor.Report
So Harris, to make the Republicans’ heads explode? And to get the new VP approved by both houses before the midterms?Report
You know, I laughed for a second and then realized that that would be an excellent way to get rid of a little bit of baggage.
Then appoint Hillary as VP.
Then resign.
Straightforward from here, even.Report
Holy crap.
Report
No way in heck. It’s the fishin’ NY post for one thing.Report
It’s one thing to give a chuckle and say “no way in heck” when Brother Michael makes a pleasant hsitpost about it.
I was expecting that to be the extent of my thoughts on the matter.Report
I’m surprised they didn’t go with Omar.Report
Only because Michael K. Williams is dead.Report
You’re about an hour too late, I think.
Someone in the Administration already suggested it.Report
I agree with both of these Hot Takes.
Report
I have a dream, that one day all takes will be judged not by their hotness, but by the quality of the take itself.Report
Good luck with that.Report
Hmm… are we sure there are 50 votes? Manchin voted for two of Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.Report
Manchin also believes there’s still bipartisanship to be had in the Senate. Unless Biden really biffs the nomination he’ll play along.Report
Manchin has never bucked his party on Judges or appointments when it mattered, I see no reason to think he’d do so now. Frankly right wingers would probably be better off pinning their hopes on Sinema defecting- she’s deranged and deluded enough that it’s at least conceivable whereas Biden would have to nominate someone Manchin affirmatively hates to put the Senator from WV’s vote in doubt.Report
I’d get his ‘hate list’ post haste then. Would hate to find out who he hates by nominating them.Report
I think Biden can depend on Schumer for that. We should all note, mind, that neither Manchin nor Sinema have stood in the way of ANY Biden/Democratic nominated judges no matter how liberal they’ve been. Sinema’s newly elected so her record is positive but short and thus not dispositive. Manchins’ record is long and positive on this matter and I don’t see any reason to think he’d volte face now. I still think that liberal doomsayers and conservative wish casters would get better odds aiming their imaginations at Sinema rather than Manchin when conjuring a spoiler in their minds.Report
Unless Manchin switches parties.
IMHO that’s unlikely… but not impossible or even unreasonable.Report
We’ve gamed that out in at least three other threads. He won’t switch parties because even in WV, he’s not right wing enough to survive a primary challenge. He wants to stay in the senate, and that requires running where he is. Heritage Action gives him a 20% lifetime conservative score.
We are stuck with him and he with us.Report
It is, I agree, unlikely. It isn’t impossible but switching parties would virtually assure he’d be primaried out by a true right winger* in the next cycle whereas he might, maybe, have a fighting chance as a maverick WV Democratic Senator in the general. It’ll take more than lefties saying mean things about him to make him switch parties- indeed lefties shrieking about Manchin is basically the core of his re-election strategy. Leadership, thankfully, seems to recognize this and isn’t doing the kind of stuff that would make him actually consider switching parties.
*public service reminder: He voted to impeach Trump.Report
By my count the Biden admin has gotten confirmations for 84 federal judges, I believe all of which had Manchin’s vote. I’d be shocked if he changed his approach now. This is where some of the intra-party criticism of the Senator from WV probably should be tempered. There has quietly been a very significant infusion of Dem appointed judges over the last year.Report
Breyer was confirmed 87 – 9, Sotomayor 68 – 31, and Kagan 63 – 37. A downward trend, but nothing like a party line vote.Report
Garland 0-0. Call that ratio whatever you like,Report
In fairness I don’t think we can really talk about the existing dynamic without accounting for the Garland non-vote.Report
All Supreme Nomination votes: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm
I’d say Bork was the great switch where the GOP had to really struggle to get their people on the Court. Garland seems to have been the big exception for the Dems. Other than him the GOP didn’t make much effort to keep their people out.Report
The GOP only struggled with Bork because members of his party voted against him after he was given full hearings in Committee. Democrats struggled with Garland because the GOP didn’t even conduct hearings, much less a floor vote. Apples and ice cubes.Report
And soon after Bork’s nomination failed, Scalia was confirmed overwhelmingly.Report
Haven’t you heard? That’s untruth now.
The new reality is Bork was robbed, smeared, hoodwinked, and bamboozled and it was the worst thing to ever happen and the reason everything is bad now because MEAN DEMOCRATS.
Continuing to insist that Bork lost because he was such a bad nominee that a number of GOP Senators voted against him in a straight majority floor vote will get you sent to the camp for reeducation.Report
Those who say that Bork was robbed have been saying it all along. Framing it as an Orwellian rewrite of history isn’t accurate.Report
Lying then and insisting now, after the truth has become history, that the lie was true is a rewrite of history. People denied the Holocaust at the time, too.Report
Bork was the shifting of the “let the President have his pick” to “oh fish, the Supremes are seriously important”. The Left pitched a fit and the Right took it seriously and backed down.
Now the Right expects the Left to manufacture false rape accusations (or whatever) and they understand they need to ignore that if they want conservative judges on the court.
It’s all political theater. It has nothing to do with how good or how bad the nominee is. The two sides are fighting over the court.Report
Haynsworth and Carswell were turned down in 1969 and 1970 respectively, because they were crappy judges with a history of racial bias. Nixon still got four nominations through, but with better nominees,
Bork being the moment at which the Court being politicized is just baloney.Report
Before Justice Powell’s expected retirement on June 27, 1987, some Senate Democrats had asked liberal leaders to “form a ‘solid phalanx’ of opposition” if President Reagan nominated an “ideological extremist” to replace him, assuming it would tilt the court rightward.[24] Democrats also warned Reagan there would be a fight if Bork were nominated.[25] Nevertheless, Reagan nominated Bork for the seat on July 1, 1987.
…
Following Bork’s nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of him, declaring: [snip]
Bork responded, “There was not a line in that speech that was accurate.”[28] In an obituary of Kennedy, The Economist remarked that Bork may well have been correct, “but it worked”.
(wiki)Report
I wonder if there was anything in the wiki about bork’s way out there views or being fine with the Saturday Night Massacre or his getting voted down by R’s also or that bork not liking a speech critical of him isn’t the winning argument you think it is.
This isn’t good cherry picking as bork’s hx has been well noted here.Report
The Saturday Night Massacre absolutely weighed in this.
That doesn’t change that this was the moment when the whole “Right judges must not get approved” became a thing.Report
he’s the only one, and he was voted against by his own party.
Try again.Report
He was just the first one. The Left brought their A game and the Right folded.
It’s like the first time you yell “wolf” everyone comes running but the 10th time they don’t.
The Right now expects false rape accusations and votes for their guy anyway.Report
Lani Guinier recently passed away.Report
While the approval margins have gone down, no conservative appointee since Bork has been voted down. Kavanaugh was not. Alito was not. Thomas was not. Barret was not.
You are trying to start building a molehill using an excavator.Report
This really feels like a bad faith argument. You say above that the SNM massacre was part of the opposition. So it wasnt’ just “the left”. It was republican’s when they were ashamed of Nixon and they also were squicked out by some of bork’s crazy pants views.
Before telling us about “false rape…” tell us about borks actualy views.
And for godsakes, false rape/murder accusations have become a bit to common in the past couple decades. Lets not preen about the other side being so so bad because it’s look the cheapest arguing to score points instead of finding wisdom.Report
Bork is a good example of how the conservative view that liberals are illegitimate was always latent.
Bork was given a fair hearing and voted down in a bipartisan show of votes.
But this victory for the liberal side couldn’t be accepted as a simple political victory, no, it had to be written as a dolchtosslegende, a dirty trick and wholly illegitimate outrage which Must Be Avenged.
The fact that, almost 40 years on, this still burns hot in the memory of people who were in diapers when it happened is remarkable testimony to their culture of grievance.Report
Adventures in Republican diversity and inclusion:
Tennesee County Bans “Maus”, PulitzerPrize Winning Holocaust Book
http://tnholler.com/2022/01/mcminn-county-bans-maus-pulitzer-prize-winning-holocaust-book/
Now for the record: This doesn’t appear to be overt anti-Semitism. But it demonstrates the callous indifference towards the suffering and persecution of ethnic minorities, and the overriding desire to never make white Christians feel any discomfort.
And at some point, callous indifference is indistinguishable from hate.Report
The hate is quite plain to see:
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/20068/ridgeland-mayor-demands-lgbtq-book-purge-threatens-library-funding/Report
I quite enjoyed maus. I’ve got it around somewhere.
Having said that, I’m not sure it’s middle school material.Report
And when did you first read it?Report
Ten years ago? Call it when I was in my mid 40’s.
Granted it’s been a while but as best I can recall it was an adult book.
A cartoon mouse has a complex relationship with his traumatized father, it probably becomes adult right there. Most of the book is doing a deep dive on what traumatized his father, the German cats who did the holocaust.
It’s a cartoon Diary of Anne Frank on steroids. The life of someone actually living through this, with the added part of this is how it still affects him. And he survived to put in the nastier parts and had a better understanding of what was going on.
Anne is already 8th grade and I’d call Maus a step above that so I’d peg it at 9th.Report
It would depend on the middle schoolers individually, of course, but I’d be generally ok with leaning on the side of including it in a specific history curriculum around that age. It’s much more graphic (no pun intended) than the diary of anne frank (edited or otherwise), but…it was industrialized mass murder? there’s no scraping the horror away.
The objections to the language and sexual content (none of which is salacious, to say the least) are – and this is lending them quite a bit of goodwill, frankly – very, very, very shortsighted. There’s a point and they’re missing it, to be sure, regardless whether their missing that point is intentional or organic.
But I am extremely jaundiced in the eyeball towards curriculum/library removals in general, and the slate of legislative shots (almost all of which are deeply unconstitutional, it would appear) across the bow are significantly negative modifiers on what is already one of the worst tendencies in modern life.
tl;dr this stuff is always bait for the rubes. i’d ask people to be ashamed of themselves, but they don’t hold my values and thus have no well of shame. they should at least be ashamed at their own ignorance. I’d wager at least some of the more classical challenges of yesteryear (huck finn and mockingbird being perennial favs) were pushed by people who had at least *skimmed* the texts they wanted removed first…Report
Whenever I encounter calls for censorship from the left, I start a countdown in my head.
I rarely reach the single digits.
I mean, seriously, I want to scream “do you guys think that we have these weird enlightenment values to shield the rubes from Team Good?!?!?!?”Report
RW’s “censor” something. See, told your to watch those LW’s.Report
Do you think that we have these weird enlightenment values to shield them from us, Greg?
“Why do you keep bringing up the importance of not defecting in this iterated game against people who have the ‘Grim Trigger’ strategy?”Report
jaybird, look, we have an absolutely stupid and completely dominant theory of mind in this country. full stop. and have for decades as a strong current, but it’s now just absolutely universal.
and it always goes something like:
1: their ideas are insidious and powerful (and wrong)
2: our ideas are weak and subtle (and correct)
it’s the fundamental rhetorical strategy for dipsticks like chris rufo.
it’s also the fundamental rhetorical strategy for [insert public person you don’t like here].
i.e. radicalized by youtube or made trans by tiktok and other such tipper gore 2.0 nonsense.
and this is both very, very bad and very, very unfixable. and yet it needs to be pushed against, first and foremost in our own minds.
insisting upon breaking it into political wings misses the larger point. i would implore you to stop making that mistake. (if i knew you in real life i’d suggest stop hanging out somewhere where so many people hate you because you go out of your way to needle them, deservedly and not, but i’m not here to kink shame)
making it into a “left” or “right” thing is a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. and i try to see it with some understanding i don’t actually feel because the partisan identification heroin drip – and there’s more than a few junkies on this site – is soooo strong. it melts minds. but this framing is an absolutely fundamental distortion of the larger problems we’re seeing as we slide through a significant period of social disarray.
the idiot ball is currently largely in the legislative hands of the r’s, which is worse than just the normal routes of protests and letter writing campaigns (or overreactions to seven people signing a single letter and yanking xyz text for whatever reasons). whatever i may think of DARE style DEI trainings in schools (one puff of white supremacy and you’ll be hooked for life), a legislative “solution” is always, always, always going to be 50x worse than what it purports to solve.
most of these legislative efforts will not pass. many that do (hopefully all) will be struck down for various performative idiocies and blatantly unconstitutional garbage that gets tossed into the combine.
but probably not all of them. and never once, like that texas bounty bill, will the people pushing them stop to think what it will look like when their hated other (whose beliefs are insidious and universal and out to get them) does the same stupid thing.
it’s exhausting, and impassable. the best we can do is arm our children with the knowledge that activists lie, politicians lie, and we lie to ourselves with stories.
(not banning maus would help on this front, all other things being equal, because it is a story about the power of stories-for both good and evil. also not being the kind of cretin who bans maus should be a social goal of some sort, in a more perfect world.)Report
Oh, man. The whole theory of mind thing is important.
Yeah, that seems to be adopted by pretty much everybody.
insisting upon breaking it into political wings misses the larger point. i would implore you to stop making that mistake.
I tend to agree that it’s not a political wings problem, but I do think that there are two dominant mindsets in the US right now that can be painted as “progressive” vs. “reactionary”. It’s not limited to that, of course, but if you wanted to paint with a broad brush, that’s something close to what you’d end up with.
Once upon a time, these two groups were somewhat more willing to trust each other and much more willing to collaborate.
And trust is going down and collaboration is going down and people seem to think that the best way to avoid this is to censor and somehow nudge people toward greater collaboration through a lack of them having access to The Bad Ideas.
But the lack of collaboration doesn’t come from exposure to The Bad Ideas, it comes from the lack of trust.
And people seem to understand it when the outgroup censors. And they have no understanding at all when they censor. They don’t even see it as censorship. Hey, sometimes things stop being popular. Sometimes stores don’t sell things anymore. It’s the market at work. It’s not *CENSORSHIP*. Jeez.
And the theory of mind is one that cannot comprehend seeing through another pair of eyes.
Once upon a time, enlightenment values were, more or less, a shared meta-ethic that allowed for some trust and collaboration. From where I sat, it was Team Good that believed in them enthusiastically and Team Evil that only went along with them reluctantly.
As Team Good abandons them… apparently thinking “hey, we’ll finally *WIN*!”, they don’t seem to realize that Team Evil is salivating at the chance to get rid of this Voltaire bullshit and get back to basics.
I don’t think that Team Good is anywhere near as prepared to deal with an abandoned enlightenment framework as Team Evil.
Like, Team Good has no idea. Even though every single time this or that notion is abandoned, Team Evil somehow manages to drop it even more deftly and apply its lack.
And the response is somehow always “we should be even *LESS* enlightened!”Report
There was a time some vaguely left aligned organization like the old ACLU would be all over this crap in the schools, and other places, including on behalf of conservative individuals when they were being trampled by some authority. Now that the new ACLU is Team Good, they won’t fight for people like that, but Chris Rufo sure will.Report
This evolution of how the 1st Amendment is considered the foundation of Free Speech rather than this weird Enlightenment stew being the foundation of the 1st Amendment is going to result in some seriously irritating “but I didn’t mean for that to be normalized” protestations.Report
What do you consider censorship from the left?Report
You know. The stuff that will get you to say “But Corporations can do whatever they want!” as if that’s not a phrase that you’re going to choke on someday.Report
You know. The stuff that will get you to say “But Corporations can do whatever they want!” as if that’s not a phrase that you’re going to choke on someday.
Has it not ever occurred to you that I use that phrase both sarcastically and ironically, mostly to throw it back in the face of the “blow up the regulatory state and let capitalism reign free” conservatives, who invariably are all a twitter (the old kind) when businesses do something they don’t like (like mandating getting vaccinated to keep working)?Report
Well, then. Let me restate what I said before:
Report
I reject the unspoken premise of the question.
That censorship is always bad.
Censorship is in fact a good thing. And everyone here agrees with me, depending on the context.*
No one here is prepared to say that all views must be heard always and everywhere, or that there should never be any punishment for speaking taboo thoughts.
So playing “Censorshop!!” card is a classic blunder, right up there with a land war in Asia or partaking of “Team good/ Team Evil” moral relativsm.
Everyone here…everyone…believes they are on Team Good and anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves. This goes double for Team AboveItAll.
*If you’re tempted to object, please just stop. Stop for a moment and search your mind for that one set of ideas that is so malignant or false and defamatory or dangerous that it should either be suppressed or punished.
Because you have them somewhere and it will waste about 50 comments before we smoke them out. So lets cut to the chase.Report
Of course Censorship can be good, sometimes. Rarely.
The problem is that I don’t trust anyone who steps up to do it. I don’t trust them to have a limiting principle. I don’t trust them to have good judgment. I don’t trust them to not engage in petty, stupid censorship of ideological opponents in addition to censorship of stuff that everybody agrees should be censored.
The movement from “surely we agree that (horrible, egregious example) should be censored, right?” to “therefore I censored the person who disagreed with me” is a slope that I’ve seen fallen down more times than not.
“But what about Dr. Seuss! Surely you agree that *HE* should be censored!”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. But I don’t trust the person who censors Dr. Seuss to not want to censor Shel Silverstein next.”
(“The Giving Tree is really problematic. I just think the book should be rewritten. That’s not censorship! The tree needs good boundaries.”)Report
Yes, you do trust them.
You support libel laws, right? That if I slander you, you should be allowed to sue me and you trust the government with the power to adjudicate and enforce its judgement?
And you certainly trust the government to disperse a riot, and to prosecute those who loot.
The “I don’t trust authority” is just a dodge deployed when convenient.Report
You support libel laws, right?
I dislike the US’s less than the UK’s.
I don’t agree that if I am willing to tolerate the US’s, then I ought to tolerate the UK’s.
That if I slander you, you should be allowed to sue me and you trust the government with the power to adjudicate and enforce its judgement?
No. I can’t say that I trust the government to adjudicate it properly. Given the track record of what’s actually happened, it results in normal everyday people getting ignored while the police get headlines like “officer-involved incident results in police-officer’s spouse being hit by bullet”.
And you certainly trust the government to disperse a riot, and to prosecute those who loot.
I had more trust in the government doing this in 2019 than I did in 2021, actually.
The “I don’t trust authority” is just a dodge deployed when convenient.
It’s certainly gotten a lot more convenient in the last couple of decades, I tell you what.Report
“Not trusting it to adjudicate it properly” doesn’t negate “trusting it to adjudicate it.”
Adding the modifier doesn’t change it to a negative, it just modifies it.
If we take your statement that “censorship is good sometimes” and ignore the modifier of “properly” what we’re left with is “I support censorship sometimes and trust the government to adjudicate it (even if they do it improperly)”.
And there’s nothing wrong with that statement! Its one that virtually everyone holds!
But it undercuts your sarcastic jibes about Team Good and Team Evil, because now you have to actually do the hard work of parsing out WHEN censorship is good, and why, and then defend those positions, rather than just curling your lip and rolling your eyes.Report
Chip, it’s more like “I’m powerless to do anything”.
And so I sit with it.
And it seems we are in the cycle of you explaining to me that if I would be okay with the censors taking care of the bad Dr. Seuss, I ought to go a little bit further down the slippery slope and accept rewrites of The Giving Tree.
I say: No.Report
What you’re struggling with is doing the hard work of explaining why you support government power over here but not there.Report
Support? No, I don’t support it.
But I live with it.
And I reject the argument that if I am not (fedpost redacted) then I must really support it.Report
Which is why you are unable to construct an argument that makes this use of government power different than that one.
Arresting a shoplifter, banning a book…you oppose both of them, but live with them.Report
Have you seen the news lately? They’re not arresting shoplifters anymore either.
Still banning books, though.Report
Not arresting shoplifters is a good thing, then?Report
Personally, I think it’s bad.
I also put it in a different category than banning books.
But I suppose you could pull the whole “banning a book is preventing someone else from reading it, but stealing a bottle of shampoo is preventing someone else from using it to wash their hair so it’s the same thing.”
Now that I think about it, it seems likely that you’d pull that.Report
If it’s bad to not NOT arrest shoplifters, does that mean you support government power to arrest them over here, while you oppose government power over there?
Of course you do, but you aren’t able to construct a logical theory of why.Report
Reading books is not illegal.
Stealing stuff is.
Enforcing the law for the 2nd seems like a no brainer. Banning the reading of [a book] seems like a heavier lift.
Having said that, there’s an element of nut picking here. We have 14k school boards. Some aren’t filled with highly qualified people. Having some of them beclown themselves is expected.Report
I’m also opposed to murder.
And I support the police arresting people for murder.
“But you oppose banning books?”
“Yes.”Report
That’s good!
It’s good to support government power over here while opposing it over there.
It’s good to support censorship here while opposing it there.
It’s even better when you can explain the difference.Report
Chip, conflating pushing an old lady out of the way of the bus with pushing her into the path of a bus by calling both cases “pushing old ladies around” is morally unserious.Report
You’re still not constructing a logical argument of premise-facts-conclusion.
Why not just say “I support government power when it meets criteria a thru n”?Report
I believe that the point of the government, more or less, is to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Justice includes stuff like “arresting murderers” and not stuff like “banning books”.
Like, is the idea that if I’m not an anarchist, then we’re haggling?Report
“But what about Dr. Seuss! Surely you agree that *HE* should be censored!”
I do remember when that discussion happened. Fun reading in the comments there. Chip’s attitude seems to be that this was merely “conservatives…losing their shit over a routine decision by a copywrite[sic] holder to not publish their work.” (as opposed to this, where removing a book from a curriculum over content concerns “demonstrates the callous indifference towards the suffering and persecution of ethnic minorities, and the overriding desire to never make white Christians feel any discomfort.”)Report
Yes, I still believe that it’s OK to withhold ethnic slurs but not truthful history.Report
Sorry sport, I am an extremist on this front. Actual government censorship is an unmitigated wrong. And should be fought at every step.
The treason and sedition act was lame for a reason.
If you’re conflating libel of private citizens with censorship that’s an incorrect conflation.
And if you’re tempted to quote fire in an crowded theater please go read the popehat explainer about why this ubiquitous mistake (esp in Twitter) is wrong-headed on all fronts.Report
If men with guns can put me in a cage for speaking words, what would you call it?Report
Criminal libel aka let’s raise a glass to the death of the treason and sedition act and curse those who would ressurect it in any manner.
If you’re obliquely (jaybirdly?) referring to incitement you should probs read up on what that actually is.Report
Glad to. I was raised by history professors and educators. I don’t agree with government directed censorship, both because I believe in grappling with hard ideas, and because it distorts the historical record.
I detest the ideas of bigotry and discrimination of any kind – anti-Semitism, misogyny, racism to name a few – an objection rooted as much in my Christian faith as in my desire for clean scholarship. I know of no way to fight them however if they are allowed to be hidden under a bushel whether that hiding is done by a school board, or by burning what you think are every copy of the tome in question. I also believe that public sanction and censure for those spouting the ideas is a necessary condition of a functional society. And I do celebrate when bigots get taken downs hard in the public square.
As to corporate censorship – I’m not a fan either, though I do find it ironic that so many people who object to corporations limiting speech while applauding corporations who do all sorts of other unethical things in the name of profit. We live in a nation and a time where, with limited personal resources, I have to choose which to fight more. And frankly I choose government, because history teaches us over and over that government censorship is far more pernicious.Report
Really good comment.
I have a BA in history from a public university. Some of those classes involved exposure to some pretty ugly primary sources. But it was necessary to understand the subject matter and I’m comfortable saying that a person who was not would not and could not get it.Report
That part seems to be in the “be clowning of themselves” territory.
It’s a really grim book because the subject is grim. It’s very well done. I can see arguments for it being a high school thing rather than middle school. It seems those arguments aren’t involved here.
I should probably ask my 14 year old when the holocaust is covered in school.Report
When my most gracious explanation of an officials behavior is “they are really dumb” I’m tempted to feel bad. They should do a study group. Or like read the actual work. That’d be nice.Report
From what I understand, it wasn’t “banned”.
It was moved from “assigned reading” to “not assigned reading”. It went from “being part of the curriculum” to “not being part of the curriculum”.
While I can absolutely understand the outrage at a book being banned, this is different from that.Report
This is pretty universally considered “banning,” and if you go to any banned book list, you’ll find many books in this situation. I suppose an important question is, is the book still in the library? Part of the argument for removing it from the curriculum was that they couldn’t use censored copies, because that would run up against copyright laws, so I find it likely they did remove it, though I haven’t seen that reported. If it has been removed from the library, and from the curriculum, I’m not sure what else would be required for it to be banned. Searching kids’ lockers to make sure they’re not reading it independently?Report
You have to understand Chris, Jaybird’s head would explode if he had to side with the woke libs on something but he is ostensibly anti-censorship…so we get mental gymnastics!!Report
Yes, in this case the mental gymnastics are incredibly stupid.
For instance: A school that distributes Anti-Semitic materials to all classrooms has actually “banned” the materials, because they are not part of the “Required Reading List.”
This is NOT a hypothetical, there are many Standard Texts that include Anti-Semitic materials (In this case, I’m referencing Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales).Report
“Banned” book lists are typically made by librarian associations aren’t they? What these lists really catalog are, for the most part, cases where people have tried to override librarians’ judgment about what books should be in school libraries.
When school librarians “ban” books by deciding not to stock them in the first place, nobody notices. Those books don’t make it onto the lists.
These lists aren’t about actual censorship. The books are still available in stores, and usually at public libraries as well. They’re about challenges to librarians’ and teachers’ authority to make unilateral decisions about what books are in school libraries and classrooms.Report
I dunno about that. I remember the Dr. Seuss debates recently. Remember those?
“Those books weren’t *BANNED*. They’re just not going to be published anymore and the library isn’t going to carry them anymore and ebay isn’t going to sell them anymore.”
And now we’re in a place where a book is taken off the assigned reading list and that’s seen as “banned”.
And I find myself in some sort of Orwellian place where words mean different things today than they did yesterday and I’m expected to not notice.Report
You weren’t paying attention then and you aren’t now. A publisher deciding not to continue publishing a book is not the same thing as a government entity removing a book from a public sphere.Report
I agree that a published deciding to not continue publishing a book is not the same thing as banning it. (And my criticism was not limited to deciding to cease publication, mind.)
But neither do I think that removing a book from a school curriculum is the same thing as removing it from the public sphere.
I have lived long enough to see plenty of curriculum changes. They weren’t bans and it’s deeply silly to argue that they are.Report
Did the publisher put the books into the public domain so that someone else can publish the books, or are they abusing copyright law to make sure that no new copies of the books can be printed by anyone?
The latter actually does look a lot like actual book banning to me. Certainly it’s much more like book banning than removing a book from middle-school curriculums.
That said, they’re just children’s books. The real concern I have is the suppression of scientific research that contradicts the Narrative. No, it’s not exactly the same as government censorship. But it’s still really bad. There are too many people in academia who have no business being in academia because their censorious instincts are profoundly toxic to the scientific process.Report
I should have said “copyright holders” rather than “publisher” above.Report
For someone who seems supportive of unfettered capitalism it strikes me as … ironic … funny … sadly overwrought … to object when a private entity makes a decision about its own property.Report
Like all reasonable people, I don’t believe that everything I disapprove of should be illegal. Conversely, I don’t want everything I disapprove of to be banned. I don’t think that the Geisel estate should be required to publish these books, even though I think they were wrong to pull them.
In fact, I really only made a positive claim: Refusing to allow a book to which you own the copyright to be published is much closer to a the ban on a book than pulling it from a school library is. I didn’t advocate any policy change.
That said, intellectual property has always been a somewhat contentious topic among libertarians, because it’s clearly different from physical property in important ways. Copyright law is a kludge. It’s a trade-off between concerns about underproduction of public goods and true (i.e. government-enforced) monopoly. There is no obvious principled libertarian position on copyright.
Personally, I’m generally in favor of it, but do keep in mind that its purpose is to encourage the production of creative works. In principle, I would support making copyright protection contingent on actually offering the work for sale. Not even primarily because of things like this, but more because of all the works that have gone out of print for lack of market demand (though I hope that digital publishing will eliminate this problem going forward).
In practice, this creates problems. The Geisel estate could offer copies for $500 each. Nobody would buy them, but they’d still technically be for sale. Some niche technical books actually are worth $500, and I don’t want the government in the business of deciding how much each book is worth and setting a maximum price publishers can charge to maintain the copyright. So I still don’t have any kind of concrete policy proposal to address this.
Despite you being kind of an ass about this, I’m feeling generous, so I’m giving you a D on this intellectual Turing test.Report
I actually appreciate your take on this – though the thread has gotten so long that it got buried before I could take it in.
What I find interesting in this is your differentiation between intellectual property and physical property. Humans labor to produce both, albeit using different resources. Strikes me that in a capitalistic system, if humans get to commodify their physical property and physical production and offer it for consumption through purchase, intellectual property needs to be afforded the same courtesy. And if humans can decide the physical property they produce should no longer be available for commerce, then their IP should as well. Of course, nearly all the IP I produce as a federal scientist isn’t something I’m allowed legally to own, and most of it will never have my name attached to it, because its been produced with collective resources (i.e taxes) for a public good (understanding the oceans).
There’s also a language issue here – you see private actors doing things with their IP as being a ban, but a government entity removing IP may not be. I disagree, both because history is littered with governments removing IP from the public square for nefarious reasons, and because in our current system IP deserves the same leeway that physical property does.
My final disagreement with you on this is the notion that you don’t want things to be banned that you disagree with. That’s fantastically altruistic, but its not how a great many of our fellow citizens operate. Should your attitude be prevailing in say Florida I’d be amused but not terrible worried – however the legislature there is about to ban the teaching of any materials that might make someone feel bad. A government entity choosing to do that is, from my view, a far worse damage to knowledge in the public square then a publisher pulling one of its books. The later is a private actor acting privately in a market economy where libertarians rail on about the sanctity of private commerce; the former is a government body telling their citizens that public education, paid for with public funds, will not teach certain things. That strikes ne as far more damaging to knowledge and thus a far more important fight to have.Report
“A publisher deciding not to continue publishing a book is not the same thing as a government entity removing a book from a public sphere.”
(neither of those things happened to Maus)Report
Did libraries remove those books from the shelves? If so, every library? Or just some?
Did Ebay say they wouldn’t sell them?Report
Here’s an article on Ebay removing its listings. It was kind of funny because you could still purchase copies of Nahtzee memorabilia including that “My Struggle” autobiography on Ebay… but you couldn’t buy those books.
Don’t worry, Ebay fixed that contradiction quickly.
Did libraries remove those books from circulation? There were a non-zero number that did. Here’s an article on the Chicago library doing so.
If so, every library?
I have no doubt that there are libraries that did not pull them from shelves.
I imagine that there are school districts that still assign Maus.Report
This has been “banned” for pretty much as long as I’ve known about banned book lists (since high school, maybe?). I suppose the Seuss books fits, because though I don’t know any cases of “banned” books that were pulled by the publishers (this is a choice publishers make for a variety of reasons everyday), if circulating copies are being pulled, they’re being banned by any reasonable definition.
That said, this feels less like confusion about definitions than an attempt to change the subject, which is always gross in cases like this.Report
It’s also an example of Debate Team 101 oversimplification where “My Struggle” is equated to “Diary of Anne Frank”, that is, all viewpoints are equal.
Which on Day One of High School Philosophy sounds cool but doesn’t hold up to further inquiry.Report
I’ve always found a good rule of thumb to be that librarians not acquiring particular books or getting rid of books few people are borrowing is no big deal and that teachers or educational professionals deciding what books belong in the required curriculum or the recommended reading list are, presumptively, making good faith educational decisions, and that legislatures doing something similar are, presumptively, not.Report
Assigned by whom?
Every state differs. Does Tennessee require certain books to be included in the curriculum? Does it set the exact books that must be taught in every public school? I can’t get the link to work right now unfortunately.
Are teachers allowed to assign it? If not, that is pretty clearly a ban. Teachers are banned from teaching it.
If it used to be a required book statewide and is now an optional book statewide, I wouldn’t call that a ban but I’d be curious why it was shifted.Report
Okay… found a link. Seems it was a single school board that did this, not something done statewide. If something is removed from the curriculum such that teachers are not allowed to use it in any way, I don’t know how to describe that other than to say it was banned from that particular school.Report
Does this story feel differently now that you’ve researched it a little than it felt before you researched it a little?Report
Not really. If a government entity is telling teachers they cannot read a certain book, that book has been banned from those classrooms. And that is indeed what appears to have happened here.Report
This feels like a weird “everything that is not mandatory is forbidden” thing when I’m seeing it as a school board deciding to replace one book in the curriculum with another.
Is this the only book that does what it does?
I’ve read the book as well and I found it moving. But if I heard that it was not part of a curriculum, I would not be surprised (I went to school when it was still considered a “comic book” and, therefore, would *NEVER* have been assigned reading. NEVER EVER. Read a book without pictures! Here’s some Elie Wiesel! No pictures, though. Sorry!)
And now I’m in a place where replacing Maus with, oh, The Trial of God or Night or something is called “banning Maus”.
WHICH IS NUTS.Report
One of the most moving books about the Holocaust AND one of the most accessible for young adult readers was removed from a bunch of schools because of cartoon drawings of naked animals and swear words.
I call that a bad thing.
If you disagree, so be it. We’re not talking about other books or other schools. We’re talking about this school board and what they did with this book.
Do you think it’s a good thing that they did this? A meh thing? A bad thing? A terrible horrible no good very bad thing?Report
Is that the debate? Whether this is bad?
I thought we were debating something else.
Personally, I thought that the preface to The Trial of God was one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever read and think that most kids would benefit from reading that more than they’d benefit from reading Maus.
Have you read it?
Or has it effectively been banned in your household?
Do I think it’s *GOOD*? No, I don’t. I’d wait to see what they replaced it with. If they replaced it with the books I’ve mentioned above, I’d say that they’re doing a better job than my school did. I only got the Diary of Anne Frank as part of Holocaust studies and I had to read other books on my own.
So if they replace it with, oh, Night, I’d say that they’re replacing a good book with a good book.
Fewer pictures, though.Report
You are correct. We were debating whether we consider this a ban.
I know you often like to say, “Let’s find out what the people really involved think.” It’s a good strategy!
And while I’m not a middle or high school humanities teacher, I am a teacher. So, I’d consider myself kind of involved.
If anyone with authority over me told me I could not do something in my classroom, I’d consider that a ban. Some of those bans would be appropriate (“No hitting the kids!”) and some of them would not and many would fall somewhere in the middle.
During my second year at my current school, the then-administrator told us we could no longer use play dough in our classrooms. She wanted to challenge us to think outside the box with our material usage and not just trot out the same ol’ things. She left after that year. It was 5 years ago.
We still refer to it as “The Play Dough Ban.”
And the thing is? The move made sense.
And yet… the legend of The Play Dough Ban lives on.
So, yes, teachers in that district would likely consider this book to have been banned. Even if the students could still get it delivered from Amazon. Or EBay.Report
Is the whole “let’s replace the old history curriculum with the new 1619 project and CRT stuff” engaging in bans?
I admit: I don’t think I saw it that way. I mean, I think that the whole curriculum change thing is *BAD*, but not because it’s “banning” the history that, say, I got taught back when Herbert Walker was president.
If the book got replaced with something vaguely “Plenty of people died in WWII! Let’s learn about them!”, then, yes. I might agree that Maus was banned. But if it got replaced with something like Night, I’d think that it was merely a change that has downsides and upsides and the downsides shouldn’t include the word “ban”.
Because sometimes curricula change.Report
So, I went and did some more research. From the minutes:
Mike Cochran- To clarify, your motion was to remove this book from the classroom and have them replace it with something different, right?
Jonathan Pierce- My motion was to remove this particular book from our curriculum and that if possible, find a book that will supplement the one there.
[Later]
Rob Shamblin- At that point if it’s been removed, it could be added back if there is no better alternative, I assume? I don’t know what it’s going to take to find an alternative.
Sharon Brown- It would probably mean we would have to move on to another module, they would know better than I on that. Any further discussion? We do have a motion on the table to take the book completely out. No other discussion?
I will call for a vote. This is a YES or NO vote for removal of the book.
The book was removed. No alternative was provided or approved. A teacher who spoke on behalf of the book was told to find a replacement. He said he could not think of a suitable replacement and it would mean simply moving on to a different part of the curriculum, which the board seems to have accepted as a potential outcome.
Again, in plain English… in THEIR words, they said: “This is a YES or NO vote for removal of the book.”
They voted to remove the book.
If that isn’t banning it, I don’t know what is.
Also, please continue lecturing me on how curriculum works. By the way, how much curricula have you ever written?Report
I found the minutes.
There’s a lot of crazy stuff in there.
And this part:
They removed the book without replacing it in that moment… but my read of the above is that there are multitudes of books that could replace it and that they were going to put people in charge of replacing it.
Not that they’d necessarily get to it, of course. Covid being what it is.
This seems to be removing a book rather than banning it.
Also, please continue lecturing me on how curriculum works. By the way, how much curricula have you ever written?
I’ve only ever been on one side of curriculum.
That said, I was one of those kids who read additional books to the ones that were assigned. I got exposed to the “banned” books in that fashion, I guess.Report
“Banned” in my school apparently meant “here, have this anti-semitic material, given to you by your educators.”
No, we weren’t required to read it. I liked reading.Report
Where did you address what I wrote?Report
That the minutes added additional context to your excerpts from them.
Like, I didn’t know that they didn’t even teach this last year! So, like, this isn’t going to be the first year that it’s not taught.
Did you know that?
So, like, they’re removing a book that didn’t get taught last year.
You say “If that isn’t banning it, I don’t know what is.”
I say “it’s not getting to it” in the one case and “removing something from the curriculum that they didn’t even get to last year” in another.
Where did you address what I wrote?
As for your direct question to me, I answered it.Report
Yes, failing to get to a book during a year of unprecedented and constant interruptions is identical to removing a book entirely.
TtfnReport
I didn’t say it was identical. I actually said that it was two different things.
Three different things, if you want to include “banning”.Report
So, you brought up the prior year because it was something different than what is happening now for what reason?
I will repeat, in their words, the single action the board took on that date: “This is a YES or NO vote for removal of the book.”
The book has been removed from the curriculum and is not available to teachers as a teaching tool. A teacher who wants to use that book has been told he cannot. He has been prohibited from using it in his classroom.
As a teacher, I call that a ban. You can say it is something else if you want. You can also continue to stick your fingers in your ears and go “NANANA!” while ignoring any idea that is counter to your own.Report
So, you brought up the prior year because it was something different than what is happening now for what reason?
Because this is an iterated game. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
I’m sure you can repeat, in their words, what they said without the context of the words that surround.
I provided a link to the minutes in their entirety.
I, seriously, recommend reading the whole thing. There are a lot of things covered in there that, seriously, I didn’t know when I was reading only the summaries of the story.
And removing a book from the curriculum is different than a “ban”. Even if it happens by a vote. Even if you deny it.
You know how your initial response to hearing that Dr. Seuss was removed from the shelves in one library by asking if it was removed from the shelves in *EVERY* library or just one?
It’s like that.Report
No, it’s not like that. And this isn’t an iterated game.
I read the minutes. One year, the book was part of the curriculum but due to Covid, they were unable to get to it. Lots of things didn’t happen in school last year. My kids didn’t have lunch at school last year due to Covid. That wouldn’t justify “removing” lunch from the schedule this year. And if a school board “removed” lunch from its school this year or any year going forward, anyone would call that a lunch ban.
This year and all years moving forward until a Board-level change is made, the book is unavailable to any teacher to use because it has been “removed” from the curriculum.
THAT is what is being discussed. The removal. The removal made by the board and binding to all teachers in that school.
Again, teachers would call that a ban.
You can call it whatever you want. Just like you can deny reality all you want. It doesn’t change what happened.Report
Jaybird Logic:
“THEY REMOVED DR. SEUSS FROM LIBRARIES!”
“All libraries?”
“SOME! THEY REMOVED IT FROM LIBRARIES!”
“The book was banned from these schools.”
“Is it available elsewhere in the world?”
“Yes. But these schools removed it.”
“SO IT WASN’T BANNED!”
Word games are just that… games. You play games. Enjoy.Report
Kazzy, would it be possible to do a “Kazzy Logic” comment using pretty much your exact comment there (changing an author, nothing more)?Report
Removing it from the curriculum is not a ban.
Remember the 1619 History Project? There were a bunch of people who wanted the old history books replaced with new history books.
Were the old history books being “banned”? That’s absurd. Neither is a book being taken off of a curriculum an example of a book being banned. They still have it in libraries, they still have it available for sale.
There are books, in recent memory!, that have been removed from being able to be bought and sold and have been removed from libraries.
THOSE books have been banned.
This book? It’s been taken off of the curriculum in a podunk school district.
Have you seen this tweet? It’s making the rounds:
Wanna know something funny? Dr. Seuss is on that table. Not the banned books, though. Just one of the ones that hasn’t been. Yet.Report
Do we call it a ban when a new edition of a textbook comes out and the old edition is removed from the curriculum? No? Then nothing is a ban, ever. Boom! I win the argument!Report
Chris, that might be more interesting if we hadn’t had an argument over 6 of Dr. Seuss’s books very, very recently and the arguments in service of them no longer being published or available for purchase and, yes, libraries were removing them from their shelves all concluded that these things did *NOT* constitute a “ban”.
Private companies, after all, can do whatever they want. Except “ban” things, apparently.
And now here we are where a school district is changing its curriculum and, suddenly, taking a book off of it is called a “ban”.
There’s a heck of a lot of motivated defining going on here.
I’m not seeing an underlying principle. I’m not seeing a limiting principle.
I’m just seeing a bunch of bad decisions that will have ripple effects.Report
Here’s a principle:
When a private company voluntarily witholds a book they consider hateful and false, that’s a good thing because they are promoting truthful representations of ethnic groups.
When a school district removes a book that shows truthful history, that’s bad because it withholds vital information.
The limiting principle is that private companies are more free than government entities, and that there needs to be some compelling public interest in withholding something.
Such as material that is false instead of true.Report
Yes, Chip. Thank you.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.Report
What do you think of the, er, removal of Maus in this specific case? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it neither? I’ll be happy to discuss the semantics once we’ve established that very clearly.Report
If they’re replacing it with Night or The Sunflower, it’s a shrug. I’d probably sum it up to replacing a comic book with a book with words and part of me would see that as more in line with how we did it back in my day.
Anne Frank? I’d probably shrug about that too. That was the book they had us read when I was a kid, after all. Maus wasn’t out yet, I guess.
If they’re not going to replace it with anything, that’s bad.
So it could be anything from “meh” to “that’s bad”.
And I’m guessing that the school district will have reversed itself by close of business Friday. Hurray! Victory is just around the corner. We can put another book for sale on the “read banned books” table.Report
Let’s just check that.
Book banning, a form of censorship, occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas, or themes.
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/986/book-banning
Several other sources agree with that definition but I’m only allowed one link.Report
That’s the old definition, sure. It’s close to the one I grew up with.
We have new definitions now. It’s kind of problematic that you’re still using the old one.Report
If you need to redefine words to make your argument work then your argument is wrong.
It’s like calling Rittenhouse an active shooter. Words have meanings, the meanings don’t match the situation.
The book got banned. Stupidly. I assume it was more about hysteria and virtue signaling than it was about nudity in cartoon mice.
The nudity seems to be here: https://www.rebelnews.com/in_pictures_holocaust_memoir_maus_banned_by_school_board_for_cartoon_mouse_nudity_cussing
It’s a line of cartoon mice standing nakedly in line to be processed into a camp. Most of the naughty bits are covered by word boxes and the like.Report
OK, reading the link in detail, the board’s reasoning was less about nudity and more about suicide, and the book as a whole being pretty adult. That jibes pretty well with my rememberings.
You have parents murdering their children so they’re not handed over to the Na.zis. You have the lucky people in a mass grave being killed and thrown in before they’re set on fire while the unlucky ones are just thrown in.
So it’s really hard reading… and it’s supposed to be.
Of course all that reasoning has been summed up to “nudity” by the main stream media.
Same link as my previous post.Report
Definitions are not written in stone but based on actual usage, and it wouldn’t be surprising to find that the motivated semantic creep from librarians and 1A advocates and the like has broadened the former meaning even in popular use. But let’s at least be honest that there’s a wide gap between the concept of “book-banning” that gave it its original strong negative valence (i.e. dictators preventing their citizens from reading or even being aware of the book, as in China or the USSR) vs. simply removing it from a reading list or (saints preserve us) a school library.
If “ban” just means “reduce the availability somewhat for reasons I don’t approve of” then it’s not a very useful word anymore.Report
Here is a more deep dive link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship#Banning_books
There’s not a lot of dispute as to what is happening, i.e. removing a book from library shelves (etc) is banning. The definition is what the definition is.
There is more wiggle room on “why”. Age Appropriateness seems fine. Sexual content (especially of the gay kind) tends to be more virtue signaling of the person doing the objecting and that seems less fine.
At the extreme we have “not promoting the powers that be” which takes us into North Korea and Na.zi Germany territory.
Various groups are trying to present Mauz’s ban as virtue signaling at best and banning info about the holocaust at worst. Given that this was middle school and the board seemed more concerned with age appropriateness, the hysteria and virtue signaling may be on the part of the 1st AM supporters.
In any case since it fits the definition of “ban”, I’m fine calling it a ban.Report
I suspect pretty much everyone here agrees that this is not burning books, or making owning them a crime, but the sense of “banning” used here, and long used in this context (with no real objections from the people now objecting, in large part because they’re very keen to do a lot of banning), is meant more of a signal of an attitude that could, if left unchecked, lead to the worse kind of banning. And we’ve already seen the next step (after banning books from curricula or school reading lists), here in Texas, in the form of legislators seeking to bar public libraries from carrying certain books. The step after that is, what? Making it illegal to sell them? Then own? I’m not saying the slope is so slippery that the current stage here in Texas means the subsequent two stages are inevitable, of course, just that again, calling it a ban, even though you can still order the books on Amazon, is meant to signal that an attitude that could lead to those two stages is gaining momentum, and should be checked.
It doesn’t hurt that “banned book!” is a good marketing tool, either.Report
is meant more of a signal of an attitude that could, if left unchecked, lead to the worse kind of banning.
For the record, we’re already there.
You can find people defending some of the worse kind of banning in these very comments. Get this: They think they’re virtuous to do it.Report
Which is the worst kind of banning? The Dr Seuss publisher? Or Texas legislators seeking to ban books from public libraries? It is unclear to me which you think is worse, or if you think they’re the same.Report
I didn’t say “worst”.
I was merely pointing out that, if you read some of the above comments, you’ll find people defending some of those worse kinds of banning.
And, get this: They think they’re virtuous to do it.
(I don’t think anybody has defended the Texas legislators on this website. Like, not even in theory.)Report
Which “worse” kind are they defending?Report
The whole “making books unavailable” kind. Like, not being able to be purchased and libraries removing them from shelves.
That kind.Report
Does the content of what’s being removed matter?Report
Hey, Chris. Here. This is what I’m talking about.
Get this: They think they’re virtuous to do it.Report
Does the content of what’s being removed matter?
Commercial advertisements, libel, political speech…does it matter or should we treat them all alike?Report
If everything remains in the public square, you can’t make statements about good versus evil. because its all equally good and bad to someone somewhere.Report
Seems like capitalism working like it’s supposed to: the publisher didn’t want to be associated with the book, so they took them off the market. And since this is capitalism, I’m sure someone could come along with the right offer, and they’d sell them the rights to those 8 books. Sadly, no one was buying those 8 books, so it would not be profitable to buy the rights to them, particularly at the price the publisher would likely charge (since the publisher is associated with the author/author’s family, and doesn’t want the author to be associated with them), so this is unlikely to happen, which is how it’s supposed to work, under capitalism.
As someone who frequently tries to buy books that are out of print, but does not want to pay $200 for an academic book published in 1997 that probably fewer than 500 people have read, I get why it’s annoying for the publisher to take a book out of print, for whatever reason (and I suspect that if you did some research, you’d find that the publisher not wanting to be associated with the book is a surprisingly common reason), but I don’t think it was wrong of them to do. The trying to get people to stop carrying/selling books already in circulation is bad, and I wouldn’t defend it.
I find it much, much worse, however, that actual legislators are trying to take books out of circulation in libraries and schools entirely. Much much worse not only because of who’s doing it, but also because, should it be allowed to carry on, it could lead to the worst kind of bans.Report
See? You’d be amazed at who supports books no longer being available. Or, you know, having it be perfectly understandable that the books aren’t available anymore.
It’s a corporation.
And corporations can do whatever they want.Report
Should the government interfere and force corporations to print books they don’t want to print? Or tell them that if they don’t want to print them, they lose the publishing rights? Either of those interventions would would be an ideologically confusing position from the people upset about the publisher not printing those books, but who knows?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that because a corporation does something, it’s good or bad; I’m saying that the system y’all want makes them not only possible, but likely, and even rational, within the logic of the system. That is, asking corporations to do otherwise is not quite lilke asking elephants to breath underwater, but is a bit like asking elephants to live as whales.
Now, again, the corporation asking people to remove copies they don’t own from circulation is unquestionably bad behavior, and while I’m sure it happens now and then, I can’t think of any examples (because it probably rarely gets this level of attention). But what would you do? Have the government interfere, and tell people not to remove copies from circulation? Punish corporations for asking people not to keep the books in circulation?Report
Somehow or other, this counts as “support[ing] books no longer being available.” It obviously isn’t, and anything else would be inconsistent with the free speech rights of the copyright holders, but there’s no reasoning with some people.Report
I’m going to go back to what you said before:
is meant more of a signal of an attitude that could, if left unchecked, lead to the worse kind of banning.
I say again: we’re already here.
You can find people defending some of the worse kind of banning in these very comments. Get this: They think they’re virtuous to do it.Report
No, we’re not. What the publisher did was bad, but its power to go further is pretty much done. I mean, they could ask the government to make selling or owning the book illegal, but the sign that a government will do that is the government banning books, not the publisher, and you’ve already said you’re “meh” about the government banning books if they substitute something else, so we’re right back to where we were before, that is, you’ve shown you’re not worried, so I don’t take the Dr Seuss discussion, in this context, at all seriously as anything but a distraction.
Like, you know there are actual examples of the government, the people who have the power to do things like make books illegal, trying to prevent schools and libraries from using those books, right? But you go to the publisher, because the libs don’t talk about it the way you want. I just find this utterly ridiculous, because the moment we follow it to its logical conclusion, we find a contradiction in your logic.Report
As the last thing I’ll say about this, because again, I think this side conversation is ridiculous if we’re “meh” about the government removing books from curricula, and if we’re not going to talk way more about the government trying to remove books from schools and public libraries as they are all over the country right now due to a fear of “CRT”:
The author of the book himself, long dead (I remember when he died very well; I was in high school), regretted the depictions of Asian people in some of his writing. Combine that with people being understandably upset at the depictions of Asian people in those books, and you get a pretty understandable decision by the publisher. Does this reflect a worrying trend, or a slippery slope, the way that government bannings do? I don’t see how it does, and frankly, I wouldn’t mind if other publishers stopped publishing blatantly racist shit that no one really thinks is contributing to the culture or our understanding of history or literature. These are, of course, complex decisions, and we should be having long discussions about them, as a society, but a publisher saying, “You know what, these books aren’t worth their racism” just isn’t a big deal to me.
I’ll repeat, as I already have a few times, that asking people to remove copies from circulation is bad. I get why they did it, but it’s bad, and I hope we don’t see other publishers doing it, but since the publishers basically have no way of enforcing their request, I see no issue with a slippery slope.
Texas Republicans? They show we’re on that slope. Way further down it, and on way more slippery terrain, than this Dr Seuss sh*t you’re obsessed with because you think the wrong guys got their way.Report
When I was a kid, it was the stuffy religious busybodies who wanted to censor stuff and it was the left and the libertarians that wanted stuff available. Remember Frank Zappa? Good times.
And now we’re in a place where the argument isn’t over whether stuff should be censored, but over how, *OF COURSE* stuff should be censored.
We just have to hammer out what.
I’d wager that you’re going to regret that change a hell of a lot more than the Texas Republicans will.
Oh, heck. Maybe you won’t. You can’t make an omelet, after all.Report
I recently heard the argument that the woke left is now making movies like the Christian right, making them all about the message and forgetting to be entertaining.Report
Your stance is that we’re not seeing signals of any attitudes that, if left unchecked, will lead to worse kinds of banning?
I think that you’re wrong. And you’ll recognize that sooner than later.
I’ll repeat what I said earlier again: This evolution of how the 1st Amendment is considered the foundation of Free Speech rather than this weird Enlightenment stew being the foundation of the 1st Amendment is going to result in some seriously irritating “but I didn’t mean for that to be normalized” protestations.Report
I know you think I’m wrong, but since you don’t think government banning books is a big deal, I don’t know how you think we’re going to get there from here in any way that you don’t already think isn’t a big deal. Do you see my point, here? The reductio is the key: the minute we follow your logic past where you are (and you’re stuck entirely on Dr Seuss), we get a contradiction in your logic, or at least your attitude, which in this case is effectively the same thing.
If you change your mind, and start to find the actual route to worse and worse bannings worse than “meh”, perhaps we can start to have a dialogue about how the sorts of social pressures that you believe were primarily responsible for the Dr Seuss decision might lead to worse sorts of bans, and how we can prevent that, if not legally, then by changing the discourse around things like Dr Seuss.
In the meantime, the answer to literally anything you could say from this point on is just, “What if they substitute a different Seuss book in the library/on Ebay?” So I genuinely don’t feel the need to say it. It’s implied.Report
since you don’t think government banning books is a big deal
It’s more that I see it as a natural outgrowth of abandoning Enlightenment ideals.
It’s like asking me if I support deceleration trauma because I spent a lot more time complaining about the jump than I did about how the ground was there.
DON’T JUMP JEEZ LOUISE
Oh, you jumped.
“How come you’re not complaining about the fall?”
“Don’t see much point.”Report
“they could ask the government to make selling or owning the book illegal…”
which, so far as I recall, that school board hasn’t done either, so, I guess you’ve successfully argued your argument out of existence?Report
You’ve missed some context. It’s OK, that’s a lot of comments, and the discussion is just ridiculous, but to catch you up, we were arguing about slippery slopes, and the next steps down those slopes from particular instances, and there I was talking only about next steps for Dr Seuss.
The next steps for banning books by school boards removing them from curricula is already underway throughout the country, with attempts to ban not merely books, but whole sets of ideas and historical facts, from schools, and perhaps even worse, to ban books from public libraries. The next steps after those can only be very bad, and the next steps after that, culturally, intellectually, and politically disastrous.Report
bro
i think maybe you forgot who is considered to be on the upside of the slippery-slope argument accusationReport
I would humbly suggest that the ‘real issue’ is less censorship and more the perception of caving to (at least perceived) demands of questionable merit, or even support.
When a book goes out of print because there’s no market for it no one notices, almost by definition. I’d say there’s a similar, though maybe more cynical, force in play with the superseding of text books (we added 3 pages, removed 1 and rearranged the contents just enough so you have to buy a new one).
I have no idea what the market was for these Dr. Seuss titles but I think a good example might be this Joe Rogan thing with Spotify, which I know about because I got a Very Important Email from Spotify. For good or ill a lot of people want to listen to him and there seem to be some other people doing whatever they can to stop that from happening.Report
Speaking of whom…
Hey.
This is the market working as designed.
We just have to find out who is advertising on Joe Rogan.
cbdMD, DDP Yoga, PhoneSoap, and Whoop.
Now we just have to apply some pressure and we can start asking if people want the government forcing Tushy to advertise on Joe Rogan’s show.Report
I don’t like the mentality that leads to either but it’s hard not to see the Spotify situation as a lot bigger than whether some Holocaust comic book is going to be available to middle schoolers in one TN district.Report
In the Seuss case, “questionable merit” seems like something we can have differing opinions on. I think we’d all be fine, for example, with a publisher deciding they don’t want to be associated with blatant Nazi propaganda, e.g., so knowing that we all have a line somewhere, we just have to work back to where we think it should be. There will be differences of opinion. Sometimes, publishers will run afoul of some of us and not others. In this case, at least for the no longer printing the book part, I don’t really have any beef with the reasons, and y’all do. Since Seuss himself was embarrassed by parts of them, I feel like I’m not on particularly shaky ground here. Since y’all think that there’s a mass movement of right-think that threatens enlightenment values, and this was an example of a company caving to that movement, y’all think I am on very shaky ground. Personally, I think there’s a much worse movement, but it’s not new, it’s existed for decades, centuries even, and it continues to actually try to ban books, and I’m much more worried about that than any “woke” stuff.Report
I intentionally tried to get away from the Dr. Seuss thing, and I don’t want this to go down the woke v. anti-woke debate. But do you not think the combination of technology and mass consumer capitalism has created a new sort of heckler’s veto? A relatively small but influential number of people can create false controversies which spineless corporations sometimes cave to, sometimes pre-emptively, and pretty arbitrarily?
That’s why I think the Joe Rogan thing (who for the record, I don’t listen to) is more interesting. There’s a huge market for his content and apparently a small, but dedicated group of people who don’t believe anyone should ever be allowed to hear it and who will do whatever they can to make that a reality. That’s certainly not censorship as traditionally understood but I also don’t think the impulse is good for liberal society, whether or not Spotify caves.
And I do think it’s weird to hear a ho-hum that’s capitalism for you attitude about it from people upset about the Maus thing. I actually have some background on history of the Holocaust through the undergrad level. I admit I am not a teacher, but from the pure teaching of history side I’m comfortable saying it is an interesting artifact but not a great go-to if you want to learn about the topic. It was never discussed as in anything I took at the college level and I can think of several age appropriate alternatives. Reasonable people can disagree on that but I think it’s fair to say its unavailability in a few TN schools is small beans compared to a removal from commerce, which is what people are going for with Rogan.
I guess my question is, what’s the principle being applied? Is there one, or is it totally outcome based around a subjective opinion about the work itself? Or the opinion about who is on what side of a particular instance?Report
Can you point to who defended them and how?Report
Sure, would you mind looking at Chip’s comments? Heck, to some extent, you can even look at Chris’s.
(You may want to pivot to “that’s different, we’re doing it for good reasons, besides corporations can do whatever they want. Do you want the government forcing publishers to publish books?”)Report
I’m going to keep asking, until someone can answer:
Does content matter?
Because as I mentioned before, every single person on this website, the Supreme Court, and most theories of morality, say yes.
But for some reason, the issue is being studiously avoided in favor of facile false equivalence.Report
Chip, we got into this above.
If I agree that we should ban (obviously illegal content), that doesn’t mean that I need to agree with (marginally socially unacceptable content) being banned.
That was true a couple of days ago and it’s true now.Report
See, you’re not answering the question, merely shifting it from “what is censorship?” to “what is illegal?”
If we outlaw “trickle down economic theory”, by your logic, this is now acceptable.
But of course you didn’t really mean that. The “obviously” is doing too much work.
If its acceptable to censor content (Legal or not), the next question is ,”Are there different types of content which enjoy more robust protection than others?”
(SCOTUS says “You Betcha!”)
“Does a school curriculum have different standards that private vendors?” Again, you betcha.
These are not new or even simple questions!
They all have a long history of litigation and contrary viewpoints.
Then the final question is, even after we haggle out those questions and deem that perhaps its acceptable to censor content which may be objectionable, “Is it preferable to do this in this particular instance?”
“Preferable” from the standpoint of whether the benefits to our civic society of allowing it outweigh the harms to those who object.
Even if it is legal to remove Maus from the curriculum, should we as citizens support or oppose that?Report
Even if it is legal to remove Maus from the curriculum, should we as citizens support or oppose that?
If Maus is being replaced by The Sunflower as an opportunity for the students to write a handful of three-sentence essays on the various dilemmas posed by the text, I’d not see that as “censorship”. I’d see that as “scholarship”.
I’d certainly not see it as “Maus being banned”.Report
Ok.
Is Maus being replaced by something equivalent?
All these schools pulling books by Toni Morrison and LGBTQ authors, is there any indication they are being replaced with something equivalent?Report
The school district is still going through its process and my guess is that Maus will be reinstated by COB Friday.
In the meantime, here’s a story about how this ban is spurring sales and putting the book in more peoples’ hands.Report
Chip, this is a pretty inaccurate summary of the law. Content based restrictions are presumed unconstitutional. There is no complex and nuanced debate going on, at least not in American jurisprudence. If anything the last 60 years has been a march pretty decisively away from any restrictions.Report
Why can’t I see cigarette advertising on TV?Report
Exceptions that prove the rule my friend. And really I’m not sure that’s the best example. Big Tobacco has had some pretty significant 1A victories despite being universally despised and having its own consumer protection related incentives to be careful about what it does.
But really this is silly. No one would possibly look at how the situation with something like obscenity has evolved and say it still allows for the prohibition of much of anything (child pornography is a separate subject). I have no idea how the Miller test can hold up in the age of YouPorn and it’s telling that no one even tries fighting about it anymore. The fighting words doctrine has basically been dead letter law for decades, even if SCOTUS hasn’t officially said so. FEC regs on campaign advertising only pass muster in very limited ways. Even on your pet issue of commercial speech we’ve had big pharma blasting the airwaves and the internet like it’s going out of style for 25 years now. The trend is free-er and free-er as far as the law is concerned.Report
I don’t see anyone defending the “worse kind of banning.” But I haven’t read every comment. If you could link to either Chip or Chris defending the worse kind of banning, I’d love to see it.Report
Don’t hold your breath.Report
Well, it depends on what your definition of “worse” is.
Book A is banned by the government. It is still available in bookstores, you can pick up copies on Ebay, and it is available at your local library.
Book B is not banned by the government. You cannot purchase it at stores, libraries are taking it off their shelves, and Ebay refuses to sell it.
Which banning is worse?
Some might say that A is worse because The Government did it.
Some might say that B is worse because you can’t get your hands on the book any more. Certainly not easily or cheaply.
Which do you think is worse?
If you think that B is worse, I can find people justifying B as not being as bad as A. Just look above. It’s there.
Now if you think that A is worse… well, I suppose that’s the conclusion you’ve reached based on your various beliefs. What can you do?Report
WTF? You made the claim that folks here defended the “worse” kind of banning. I’m asking you to substantiate that.Report
Kazzy, I hope you took my advice. If not, start breathing ASAP.Report
Kazzy, I admit: I see the kind of banning where you can’t get access to the books anymore as worse than the kind of banning where the books are readily available (and, indeed, seeing a sales spike).
If you want to see Chip defending the “worse” kind of banning, just look above! He’s comparing it to cigarette manufacturers not being allowed to advertise on television.
Do you not see that?Report
Last I looked the books were available on Amazon.Report
On Beyond Zebra is $75.
Only $100 for If I Ran the Zoo.
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street is a bargain at $40.
Compare to The Lorax (the book on the “banned” table): $7.Report
That would be the normal consequence of supply and demand. If the copyright holder isn’t selling any more copies, the price goes up because there are fewer books. Nothing to be done about it unless you can compel the copyright holder to sell more copies or transfer the right to sell them to someone else for either a mutually-agreeable or a unilaterally-imposed price. Not something one would expect believers in free enterprise and private property to endorse.Report
Yes. I’m not arguing that supply/demand doesn’t exist.
Is the argument that if it is still available at all, then it has not been meaningfully banned?Report
Oh, I’m sorry… I didn’t realize a publishing opting not to publish a book is a ban. Silly me… thinking words mean things.Report
Still looking for people defending it, Kazzy?
If you want to see where we discussed it at the time, it’s here.Report
I see people defending the Seuss publishers.
Hey… you’re still among the powers that be here, right? Do we have an unmoderated comment section?Report
Well, then, you’ll be pleased to know that you can purchase a brand spanking new copy of Maus on Amazon.com for the cover price.Report
Not one a teacher in that county can use in those schools without running afoul of the government.Report
I only saw the stories that said that it was removed from the curriculum.
Could you link me to the stories that talks about the penalties for using the book anyway?Report
From the minutes: “We do have a motion on the table to take the book
completely out.”
No, I don’t have details on the potential penalties for continuing to use the book. That’d likely be in the CBA/contract between the union and the district/state. I don’t know exactly how things are structured in the that state/district.
But removing it as they did means that the text is not available for use within those schools covered by the decision (may only apply to K-8 but unclear). If a teacher was found to be using the text, they’d risk discipline of some kind.
Do you want to continue to argue that reality isn’t reality?
Clever dodge, too. You never answered my question: As someone with authority here, do you support our content moderation policies?
You are comparing apples and oranges and saying that people who are identifying them as different fruits are promoting one of them. That isn’t how any of this works. But keep playing games.Report
You never answered my question: As someone with authority here, do you support our content moderation policies?
It’s more that I accept and abide by them and enforce them when required. Would I, personally, have different ones? Probably. Does that mean that I support them or that I don’t support them?
But removing it as they did means that the text is not available for use within those schools covered by the decision (may only apply to K-8 but unclear).
If it were moved from 8th Grade to 10th, would that count as a ban?
If a teacher was found to be using the text, they’d risk discipline of some kind.
I’m not certain that this is true. I had plenty of teachers use plenty of stuff that wasn’t on the curriculum when I was a kid. The only teacher discipline that I ever heard of was the guy who got fired for drunk driving.
You are comparing apples and oranges and saying that people who are identifying them as different fruits are promoting one of them.
I am pointing out that we are falling down a slippery slope and we continue to fall down it and people point out that, no, some of our slipping was good, actually.
We’re going to find ourselves in more and more fights about censorship, deplatforming, protecting the innocent from misinformation, and so on. And the #1 tool that people will reach for is “we need to make the stuff we don’t like unavailable”.
And, get this, they’re going to consider themselves virtuous.Report
If I’m reading the definitions correctly, Yes, it would.
Counter intuitively, banning books is not always evil and anti-democratic/authoritarian. The big examples that come to mind are age appropriateness and kiddy porn.
The problem is the forces of restriction are always going to try to dress their exceptions up as good for the community.
If we narrow the scope of this to Maus, I can’t tell if there’s a problem with the school board or a problem with the people getting spun up over it. I’m in that place because I’ve read the work.Report
“I’m not certain that this is true. I had plenty of teachers use plenty of stuff that wasn’t on the curriculum when I was a kid. The only teacher discipline that I ever heard of was the guy who got fired for drunk driving.”
Who ya gonna believe… the teacher or the guy that vaguely remembers things happening to teachers when he was a kid?
We can resume this conversation when you take your fingers out of your ears.Report
I was in high school when “We Didn’t Start The Fire” was a Top 40 Hit. It came out in September and we had three days to that song in my American History class.
Now, you can tell me “teachers don’t have leeway in 2022” and, hey, that’s bad. Maybe there are school districts that give more leeway than others. Diff’rent Strokes, I guess.
But, seriously, I watched teachers do stuff on the fly.
Personally, I think that I received a somewhat good education but it resulted in me thinking that books shouldn’t be banned and so here we are.Report
No, it’s that when books are available, it isn’t the case that “you can’t get access to the books anymore.” Your standard, not mine.Report
Let’s look at the transcript:
Some might say that B is worse because you can’t get your hands on the book any more. Certainly not easily or cheaply.Report
Some might, if you can get around the laws of economics without trampling on the free speech rights of copyright holders. If you can’t, then you’re complaining that you can’t have a unicorn.Report
We got into the whole “copyright” thing here, at the time.
I still stand by what I said in the comments to that post. (And, of course, my opinion that copyright needs to return, at least!, to a pre Sonny Bono Act position.)Report
“it’s that when books are available, it isn’t the case that “you can’t get access to the books anymore.” ”
cool argument bro
now do birth controlReport
My wife is past child-bearing age, so I’ll pass.Report
I suppose if you take the complaints at face value.Report
Good point, because as history shows us the self described moderates always like to find some fig leaf of plausible deniability which allows them to ignore what the radicals are doing.Report
If the true objection here is to teaching that the Holocaust happened and was bad, and that slavery happened and was bad, then we should be able to find many examples of books being removed on those grounds alone. But every time I hear about something like this, it’s a book that has content that people claim to find objectionable for reasons like sex and graphic violence.
Do you believe that it’s just a coincidence that so many of the books that are removed happen to have that fig leaf attached? Where are the removals of books that don’t have arguably age-inappropriate content?
If you want to argue that this is a stupid move motivated by puritanical, hyperprotective parents, then sure, maybe. I haven’t read the book. But if you want to score some political points by insinuating that this is really about antisemitism so that you can score some political points, we’re going to need to see some receipts.Report
At least Pat Buchanan will be happy that the Court is down to one Jew.Report
A Supreme Court that is less white is a Supreme Court that looks more like America.Report
Now Jews will be overrepresented on the Supreme Court by a mere factor of five, down from fifteen a few years ago.
It’s weird, isn’t it, how centuries of oppression and discrimination have ended with Jewish people being greatly overrepresented in high-SES occupations and institutions? That’s exactly the opposite of what’s predicted by standard sociological theories.
It seems kind of sinister to suggest that Jewish overrepresentation at the top of so many socioeconomic hierarchies is evidence of society being designed to privilege Jews and keep gentiles down, but the Science™ says that group differences in outcomes are evidence of privilege and oppression.
I wonder if there’s anything wrong with the Science™. After all, you know who else thought that group differences in outcomes were evidence of privilege and oppression.Report
We’ve been told on this thread that any difference in outcome is proof of discrimination.Report
Remember when it was a crime to teach Jews how to read?Report
Aside from the argument you’re vaguely gesturing at here being weak on its own terms, it’s totally beside the point here.
The social justice (sic) narrative is heavily premised on the assumption that group differences in outcomes must be due to systemic racism. From this it follows that the US must have quite powerful systemic racism favoring Jews. Since this is absurd, then the premise must be incorrect: Greatly disparate group outcomes can in fact arise in the absence of systemic racism, or even in direct opposition to systemic racism.
Given this, we can’t simply assume that systemic or any other kind of racism must be the cause of any other disparities in outcomes. It’s not enough to point to, say, redlining, and loudly shout, “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc!” as is currently fashionable. Actual work has to be done to determine the magnitude of the causal effect of redlining on current socioeconomic outcomes. But hardly antibody’s doing that, because everyone’s just accepting the blatantly fallacious post-hoc logic. Why risk disproving your pet theory if it’s already widely accepted?Report
My expectation is work is being done, we just don’t hear about it because the results (redlining and historical racism matter damn little compared to current culture) aren’t popular.
This is like real science being done on the paranormal (including god). The better the science the less likely it is to be published in the mainstream press because the results are disliked.
Put differently, I have had a vast impact on my children. My father has had some impact but small compared to me. His father has had extremely little that rounds to zero.Report
Well, that takes “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” a step farther: “absence of evidence is evidence of evidence.”Report
My expectation is any study that proved, or even seemed to prove, the narrative would be front page news and would be trotted out in every serious conversation.
My expectation is there are people who would love to investigate this and make their career. Similarly there seem to be a lot of liberals in the soft sciences AND getting funding to prove this should be easy.
And yet we never hear about any results.
Either the results are always bad or I’m wrong in one of my assumptions.
There’s a section in wiki where the serious academic investigative supporters of this redefine the definition of truth in order to deal with this sort of issue. You don’t need to move the goal posts like that if you’re finding the results you want.Report
Either the results are always bad or I’m wrong in one of my assumptions.
Sounds about right.Report
Max Kennerly on Twitter:
Conservative culture in 2022:
– we are offended the female M&M cartoon isn’t sexier
– we are offended there isn’t more sex in Disney movies
– we are offended by the naked mice at Auschwitz in MAUS
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1486837929385332745?cxt=HHwWksC4uYPOp6IpAAAAReport
Report
If you want to understand conservatism, ask Chip, and he’ll ask Max.
You asked me how this thread plays out. I looked at the accusations against Blackburn and Graham, addressed the nasty assumptions behind Kazzy’s hypothetical, and pointed out how wrong Philip was about the three-fifths compromise. I suspect many of the people who posted those things think they’re still 100% right. But maybe some readers have noticed that one side is only bringing angry tweets and bad evidence. I can’t end confirmation bias though, particularly if you swim in a twitterpond like this.Report
In which any evidence you dislike is rejected as bad evidence.Report
It’s a lot easier when you grade your own papers.Report
I even agreed with I’m on the interpretation that the South, by counting slaves as only 3/5ths of a person, was weaker then it would have been in proportional representation had slaves been counted as full people the same way white women and children were – and I’m still wrongReport
Did you watch the Kagan clip I posted? Chip, did you? Could someone watch it and then tell me if they think that Chip was being fair in accusing Graham of anti-Semitism?Report
Yes I’ve watched it. I watched it at the time she was confirmed. And yes, that’s the soft but persistent anti-Semitism of the South on full public display. Kagan wisely deflected it to a joke, but you can clearly tell she was a bit taken aback when it became clear the Senator was asking her. If you want to convince me and Chip is wasn’t anti-Semitic, you need to find me clips of non-Jewish Justices being questioned about their Passover or Hanukkah activities in the run up to a question about a matter of jurisprudence. Of them being asked where they were on Christmas for that matter.
I’ll wait …Report
Me too. My reaction was and remains WTF? I wouldn’t go so far as to call Graham an anti-Semite, because that takes a level of moral seriousness and energy that Graham conspicuously lacks. But it clearly shows him in the “lookie here at this exotic specimen” mode. I’m reminded of the time I visited Charleston when Nikki Haley, a Sikh, was running against some Catholic whose name I forget in the Republican primary. The local paper, which surely knows its audience, ran a sidebar explaining what a Sikh was and also felt it necessary to explain what a Catholic was, though I don’t recall if the paper identified Catholics as a branch of Christianity.Report
This isn’t even a Rohrschach test, it’s a vision test. Anyone who claims to see anti-Semitism there is hallucinating or lying. I have to say, between Chip posting this, your comment, and Saul’s mocking of the covid dead, it’s been a terrible week for even a claim of moral credibility on the OT left.Report
I wasn’t talking about vaccine conspiracy stuff, and have no plan to do so. I’m trying to make a clear point here. If the vaccine conspiracy crowd wants to appear more rational, they should stick to posting on related threads.Report
Again, it’s easy when you grade your own papers.Report
I watched the clip and it does not appear to be anti-Semetic in nature. It appears that they briefly spoke over each other leading to some confusion about what was said, which turned into a playful exchange.
Depending on their prior relationship, it could have been playful ribbing among friends or an ill-advised joke among quasi-strangers. At worst, I’d say it risks showing a bit of ignorance and lack of thinking on Graham’s part.Report
Graham isn’t ignorant – he’s trading is soft anti-Semitic tropes. No Christian in Kagan’s place – however playfully – would be asked where they were on Passover. No this is classic high society white southern anti-Semitism in full bore.Report
Speaking of the banning of Maus:
1. It came a day before the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz/Holocaust Memorial Day;
2. It comes on the heels of a Jewish couple alleging discrimination because a Tennessee Adoption non-profit stated it would not help them because they were Jews.Report
What good is religious freedom if you have to pretend the false ones are real?Report
Maus was banned by the same people who said they could see Russia from their house.Report
Report
Keep moonwalking, guys.
Tbf, this explanation is dumb enough to be plausible.
Howvever, while it is impossible to predict all eventualities, a quick Wikipedia search would have provided them with some context to understand the regard and fame of the work. From there, forseeing this incredibly likely eventuality becomes less like magic and a lot more like 1+1=2.Report
Were we originally talking about the SCotUS? Oh yeah! We were!
Report
that’s a good thing jaybird, public and state colleges are hotbeds of right-wing fascist ideological indoctrinationReport
This is surprising how, exactly? And what would the “right” number be?Report
“Surprising?” is like asking “Triggered?”
I want you to explain your emotional state when you wrote your comment! I want you to spend more time discussing your emotional state than the content of your comment!
To answer your second question: “Non-zero”.Report
so if the right number is non-zero, and the data says its zero, what conclusion do you draw from that?Report
“We’re on the wrong track.”Report
How do you propose to correct that?Report
I have opened a petition at change.org.Report
Does this reflect badly on the public schools, the elite schools, and/or the officeholders?Report
Eh, it shows how all of the incentives are bad.
I mean, there was a particularly stupid incident under Dumbya when he floated Harriet Miers, his White House counsel, as a potential justice.
This looked bad for a dozen reasons… the cronyism is what offended me at the time… but there was this weird “she only went to Southern Methodist” undercurrent.
And not because “Southern Methodists let out early because they don’t know how to cook”, but because she wasn’t Ivy League.
And all of the “hey, that’s kinda not cool” criticisms were wrapped up with the “that’s a really bad idea” criticisms and I don’t think we’ll see another non-Ivy leaguer in my lifetime.Report
Looking over the resumes I’ve seen floated for SCOTUS, they all include Harvard or Yale except for the practically-community-colleges of Columbia and Tulane (Nancy Abudu) and Vassar and NYU (Sherrilyn Ifill).Report
Oops, I accidentally hit the Report button.
Anyway, if you really want to know my emotional state — and I can’t think of a good reason you should care, but what the hell — it was “meh.” It was “meh” because, given what we know about who gets what goodies in America, this was pretty close to what one would expect. But if you add one more year to the list, you get Warren Burger, St. Paul College of Law, Class of 1931, and, a couple of years earlier, Thurgood Marshall, Howard, Class of 1933, private institutions, to be sure, but it takes some of the class-based shine off. Actually, if someone had come from, say, Berkeley, Texas, Michigan, or Virginia, all state institutions, but elite law schools nonetheless, that wouldn’t take any shine off of the class implications.Report
I guess I’m pleased that you wished to know mine enough to ask about it.
I will not share it, however. You don’t get to know my emotional state.Report
Paging Professor Younger.Report
More CRT down the memory hole:
https://popular.info/p/north-carolina-superintendent-abruptly
This time removing a book about civil rights, without bothering to read it.Report
we ought to get Andrew to start some sort of running catalogue where we can park these things.Report
We should track why they pulled these books. Oh, wait, we can’t use that kind of language on this site either.Report
Yes lets talk about why they pulled those books, and what their policy is regarding what is age-appropriate.Report
Well in this case the superintendent pulled the book based on a single white parent’s objections to some sexually suggestive language. Pulled it in violation of his district’s own policies. How would you like to bin that?Report
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senator-ben-ray-lujan-hospitalized-after-stroke/
Lujan is a Dem. He’s not dead and might make a full recovery, but it’s unclear how long that will take.
Until that happens, Senate is 49-50 ? Can he be temporarily replaced? Governor of New Mexico is a Democrat if that matters.Report
Reporting this AM is he is expected to make a full recovery, but it will grind the Senate to a halt on everything unless a couple of Republicans cross the line.Report
From looking at the titles of google search “stroke recovery time”, happy path here is probably 2-3 months.
That’s seriously WAG and based on a breathtaking level of ignorance.Report
it really depends on the location in the brain, the severity and how quickly medical intervention was applied. You can have a “minor” stroke in certain parts of the brain and be back to work in a month with no visible side effects.
The challenge will be if he decides to retire and NM has to appoint a replacement.Report
I think Team Blue controls the replacement machinery so maybe not.
Changing the topic, there’s a claim that we would already have a black female on the Supreme Court if it weren’t for the efforts of Biden.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/01/biden-black-woman-janice-rogers-brown/Report
I think Team Blue controls the replacement machinery so maybe not.
New Mexico Democrats hold all of the Governor, the AG, the Secretary of State, and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature (27-15 in their senate, 43-24 in the house with two independents and one vacancy).Report