Monday, October 02, 2006

 
A GLOBAL KRISTALLNACHT IN OUR FUTURE?


My 17 year old son's current English assignment is an essay on the banning and burning of books. While this is a subject we mostly associate with frequent periods of religious, scientific, and cultural intolerance in the historical past, the backround material seems to focus on small, but sometimes influential, groups in the US who try to keep books objectional to their local mores out of school curriculums. The usual suspects are books on Evolution, Sex Education, those with sexual content, and anything protraying gays as anything but deviant. While still deplorable, the actions of these groups represent a community dynamic that has been going on forever (They burned Elvis records, for heavan's sake).

If they succeed in removing a book from a curriculum or reading list, the result is an infringement on freedom. But it is mitigated by the presence of public libraries in every town where students are free to read the so-called banned books. The real book-burners, the real purveyors of intolerence are, right now, mobilizing to rid our western culture of all they find offensive (which is just about everything). I'm, of course, speaking of the Islamo-fascists. They brook no dissent, no straying from the party line.

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