CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP!

This one I cannot resist. This is one area where I do know what I'm talking about. I am a retired librarian and was a conservative throughout my career. I was a prison librarian and I actually denied to whole prison populations the pornography, violent political screed, mafia memoirs, treatises on the successful practice of con games and excoriation of law enforcement they demanded from the taxpayers and crime victims who pay for their upkeep and their presumptuous criminality.  This earned me the enmity of many librarians.

I would note that two close relatives of mine are librarians too and are of liberal persuasion; I respect that in all who are of good will, as I know they are.

The library profession is dominated by leftist bigots who see as their guiding light the advancement of their political beliefs through their trade.  Try expressing conservative views at a librarians' convention, in a library school classroom or in a librarians' publication. Within the field itself at best you will be patronized; you may well be jobless. I refused membership in the American Library Association and the New York Library Association because of their blatant ideological biases and their obvious and profoundly unprofessional scorn for truly free inquiry.

Most mainline librarians instantly condemn what appears to them to be (gasp!) CENSORSHIP! That no librarian has an unlimited budget, that selection of materials necessarily involves rejection of some purchases, that there must be and usually are,stated standards for  (eeeeechhh) discriminating collection building,is a reality of librarian life.  The standards extolled by those who dominate the library world are exemplified as follows:  It is not proper for librarians to make personal value judgements on the suitability of prospective acquisitions when they advocate values prized by liberals, such as in  Heather has Two Mommies or Blood in My Eye, or children's books which portray humanity as  a rapacious , environmentally destructive lot or books which bid criminals reject personal responsibility for their outrages, or sicko novels which portray children as monsters.  This is CENSORSHIP and cannot be tolerated. It is proper for librarians to reject acquisition of materials which they personally evaluate as "racist", "sexist", excessively patriotic or any of a score of ill defined "isms" mandated in the world of the left to be regarded as anathema, self evident and  indefensible upon accusation.  That is NOT censorship; that is  principled selection, HUMPHHH!.

I am reacting to news reports which, if accurate ,say that a librarian in Cambridge MA rejected a donation of Dr. Suess books from Mrs. Trump on the grounds that they expressed"racist stereotypes". Imagine the reaction in the hypersensitive media had a librarian in Tuscaloosa, Alabama rejected       
 "Heather has two Mommies".

To those who laud this librarian's actions, if they are accurately reported, I would say this: Please define the term "racism" because it is an accusation so misused and overused over the last fifty years that it is largely bereft of meaning though it has undoubted unfavorable connotations.  Then please specify what statements by Dr. Suess rate such excoriation.  I await your response.

I remember the delight with which I, as a first grader in the atavistic town of Amherst, NY,  an affluent suburb of benighted Buffalo, in the yet High Middle Ages of the 1950's, awaited readings of Dr. Suess by our school librarian.  To think that I was, in the intense naivete of my deep minority, so manipulated by that ill intended person, devastates me; why, to think of how I was unwittingly perverted! To know that I was, even to the extent of determining my life's work ,so ill used, WELL!

I would suggest that it is relevant that the librarian in question is described as practicing in Cambridge, MA; perhaps that setting has had some effect on her alleged actions.That there is a , eh, popular viewpoint in that community is certain. yes?  I  do support librarians who respect the values of their community. Can it be that she might have a less than favorable opinion of the President and (by an implication which was widely spared Hillary Clinton) his wife?

I'd also note that Dr. Suess has been, of yet, spared the condemnation of even the self righteous baby boom generation which loved him.  And all those librarians and teachers who exposed us to his works!  To know that, by fiat of the 2017 left, they are declared heretic?  I don't know how I will survive this.  Look, we know you radicals want to destroy America - but Dr. Suess????Jack