Tag Archives: democracy

controversies, law, poor judgment, rants, religion, Texas

Now libraries are a threat, and must be destroyed!

Every time I think things can’t get any more ridiculous or absurd, someone or something proves me wrong. I never thought I’d watch my country move backwards so fast as I have since Donald Trump was unleashed to wreak havoc on our democracy. It’s bad enough that judges and politicians with no medical training whatsoever see fit to try to eliminate abortion access, as they also refuse to expand social safety nets and access to affordable healthcare and childcare. Now, we have people contemplating shutting down libraries!

A couple of days ago, I read a horrifying story about a rural county in Texas where people were contemplating shutting down the local library. Why? Because in April 2022, seven residents of Llano County, Texas dared to sue county officials, claiming their First and 14th Amendment rights were violated when 17 books were taken off the shelves because they were deemed “inappropriate”.

Some people in the community and local officials didn’t like the subject matter of the books, so access to them was either restricted, or they were removed from the library altogether. These folks no doubt felt they were “protecting the community” from books about race, gender, or sexuality. Obviously, being exposed to that information would only give people “ideas”, causing them to fall into “sin”. In case you missed my sarcasm, obviously, I believe that’s ludicrous. If that’s really how they feel, they probably ought to consider banning the Bible, too.

Some “thinking people” realized that it wasn’t right for certain conservative groups to decide for everyone else what subject matter was appropriate for their public library system. So they sued, and the judge saw things their way. On March 30, 2023, US District Judge Robert Pitman ordered the Llano County Library System to return the books to the shelves within 24 hours. According to CNN:

Books ordered to return to shelves include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

The judge also ordered that the books be listed as available in the library’s catalog. The books are not allowed to be removed for any reason while the case is ongoing. Pitman said, “Although libraries are afforded great discretion for their selection and acquisition decisions, the First Amendment prohibits the removal of books from libraries based on either viewpoint or content discrimination.”

Fair enough, right? The case went to court, and the judge decided. You’d think that would settle things for now, but no…

Rather than just complying with the judge’s orders, the defendants, who had argued that the books were removed as part of a regular “weeding process”, decided it would be better to just shut down the libraries for everyone.

They were pretty sneaky about it, too. They didn’t come out and say they were shutting the library down out of spite. They raised the idea on a recent agenda without naming a specific reason for closing the library. Instead, they described it as a discussion “regarding the continued employment and/or status of the Llano County Library System employees and the feasibility of the use of the library premises by the public.”

The Llano County commissioners and members of the Library Board have appealed the judge’s ruling. They don’t trust people in their community to decide for themselves what they should read, or what books their children should have access to reading. Interestingly enough, I’m certain the people who are for book banning and censorship would identify themselves as “freedom loving Americans.” And yet, they want to dictate to everyone else what should be available to be read in a taxpayer supported community library.

One of the complaints is that the library isn’t a “safe space” for kids. If you’re really afraid of a book being “unsafe” for your kids, I wish you luck when they finally grow up and move away… Geez! God forbid you might supervise what your children are reading, too.

Fortunately, good sense has prevailed in Llano County, and for now, the library will stay open. Yesterday, the Commissioner’s Court unanimously voted to “shelve” discussion of defunding the library, at least for the time being. According to CNN:

“The library will remain open. We will try this in the courts, not through social media or the news media,” Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham said Thursday.

That is a sensible comment, indeed, although the commissioners vowed to continue to fight the lawsuit demanding the permanent return of the books. They are obviously terrified that by reading about race issues, LGBTQ topics, or other “controversial” subject matter, the innocent youth of Llano County will veer from the straight and narrow path of respectability. What a bunch of embarrassingly ignorant bullshit that is! As if people willingly choose to be completely different from their peers, so they’ll be mocked, persecuted, or even physically assaulted or killed for simply living their lives!

According to CNN:

In the public comment section of the meeting prior to the vote, 15 residents were allowed to give their opinions about closing the library. Eleven of them were in favor of keeping the library open. Another four said they wanted to temporarily close the library until a wide variety of books were removed from the system – substantially more than the 17 books at question in the lawsuit.

Still, Cunningham insists that the books were removed due to a regular “weeding” process, not because of their controversial subject matter. And to that, I say again… BULLSHIT. 😉 I don’t believe that those books– every one of which had controversial subject matter– all just happened to come up for “weeding” at that specific point in time.

Cunningham also stated in the CNN article that the idea of closing the library came up because of the cost of litigation.

“A public library simply cannot function if its librarians, county judge, commissioners and even the volunteers who serve out of the goodness of their heart, can be sued every time a library patron disagrees with a librarian’s weeding decisions,” he said.

Cunningham said the lawsuit has cost the county more than $100,000 and the total library budget is $450,000.

Well then… if county officials want to avoid litigation, they shouldn’t try to weed out books that all have to do with certain “taboo” topics. People sue when they feel like they’ve been treated unfairly. Treat everyone fairly, and with consideration for their rights, and most of the time, you won’t be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. It costs money to sue people, and it takes time. Most people don’t sue others just because it’s “fun”.

Personally, I’m grateful to Americans who aren’t taking the insane extremist actions of political conservatives lying down. Republicans have gone way too far in the era of Trump. Their ideas are not what the majority of Americans want for the country. I see and hear them bandying about the importance of the Constitution (especially the Second Amendment), but they don’t seem to realize that the Constitution is for every American. It’s not just for straight, White, conservative leaning males who have money.

I don’t use libraries much myself these days. I prefer to just buy whatever I want to read. However, there were many times in my life when having access to a library was a Godsend. Libraries should be safe, sacred places for people to expand their minds and access the information they want and need.

No group on either side of the political spectrum should have ANY right to dictate what is, or what is not, appropriate reading material for everyone else. And yes, that goes for the extreme leftists, too, who feel like they need to edit and censor classic books to suit our more “modern thinking”. That’s not cool, either.

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elections, politicians, politics, true crime, Trump

Self-appointed masters of the drop boxes…

Happy Tuesday morning to all. Yesterday, Bill, who has been feeling under the weather, finally took a COVID test to see if he was infected with the virus. Some people who were TDY with him in Bavaria had gotten positive results. Sure enough, he’s got the bug, so he’s working from home today. I told him days ago that he shouldn’t go in to work, because he’d be spreading his germs. Did he listen to me? Naw. Oh well… guess my MPH degree didn’t help this time. 😉 Fortunately, he’s not very sick. He just has the pesky head cold version of COVID. So far, I’m not feeling sick, either, but then I had COVID a few months ago. Maybe my immune system is working. I’m glad we didn’t go out and do anything over the weekend.

I keep watching the news about the upcoming elections. There are some truly vile candidates running for office, which is worrisome for those of us who long for leaders who are respectable. However, even though I don’t like the MAGA candidates at all, I still firmly believe that people should be allowed to vote for whomever they wish. That’s part of being in a free society. I don’t like it when people try to tell me who I should vote for, so I try not to do it to anyone else. Yes, I express disdain people like Donald Trump, and I don’t understand the appeal of having him, or people who “lead” like him, back in office. But I still believe that people should be allowed to vote freely, even if I disagree with their choices. I feel that way because I want the same privilege for myself.

I was dismayed to hear about people in Arizona lurking around drop boxes, watching people dropping off ballots, taking pictures of them and their license plates, and in some cases, actually confronting them. This morning, Bill told me about an video on CNN about a woman in Arizona who was hanging out near a drop box and confronted two armed men. The woman in the story appeared to be on the liberal side of the divide, but there have also been some from the more conservative side, some of whom are bringing their guns with them. I said, “Eventually, someone is going to get hurt or killed for meddling in other people’s attempts to cast ballots.”

This is insane.

As I’ve mentioned more than once, things have changed a lot in my lifetime. I’ve been around for 50 years now, and I’ve never seen or heard of this kind of foolishness surrounding elections prior to the Trump era. People have lost faith in the voting system, and some of them are taking it upon themselves to interfere with the process. There’s actually a significant population that believes our elections are fraudulent, simply because Trump didn’t win in 2020. They can’t fathom why he wasn’t chosen over Joe Biden. I just don’t get it, though. To me, it’s very EASY to see why Trump didn’t win. I may not think Joe Biden is the most exciting or dynamic person to lead the country, but it’s least he’s a basically decent person.

This is crazy!

Donald Trump has a history of corruption that runs for miles, and he’s a proponent for violence and disorder. He’s flat out expressed admiration for autocrats; he’s had many failed businesses and marriages; and he refuses to play fairly, even with our allies. Moreover, he doesn’t care about other people; he only cares about money and power, and he says and does embarrassing things that make the United States look like a Banana Republic. To me, this is very obvious. In my opinion, Trump doesn’t have any traits that good leaders possess. All he has is superficial charisma, which he uses to wind up people who are motivated by the same things that motivate him. But they don’t seem to understand that he doesn’t give a shit about them, and neither do his acolytes. Once those people get in power, they will proceed in screwing over everyone.

Still… I realize that these are just my opinions. I understand that other people feel differently. They think Trump is awesome, and they will vote for candidates who support him, like Kari Lake, who has said that she will only accept the results of her run for governor if she is declared the winner. I say, it is certainly their right, as Americans, to vote as they see fit without interference. All I want is the same opportunity. Fortunately, I voted absentee, which is still okay if you live abroad. I doubt the candidates I voted for will win, but at least I tried. And no one brandished a gun in my presence when I voted, because I did it in the privacy of my own home, in a country where far fewer people own weapons.

People have lost their minds.

I still like to hope that there are still reasonable people in the United States. Even if they don’t like liberal policies, I would hope they would make a choice for sanity. I, for one, am not a big fan of extreme liberalism. Politically, I would describe myself as deep purple. But I am NOT ever voting for MAGA Republican extremists. They are dangerous, and they are turning my homeland into a place I don’t recognize. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I long for the day when it seemed like the government was run by adults with a sense of decorum. Maybe those days are gone forever. Once again, I find myself glad that I never had kids.

The drop boxes are a good thing for people who can’t make it to polling locations. These are folks who don’t have access to transportation, sick, elderly, or disabled people, or maybe those who have to work when the polls are open. They are Americans, too, and they deserve the right to vote, just as much as someone more privileged does. For all of the complaining conservatives do about people getting “free stuff” and grifting taxpayer dollars, they don’t seem to understand that their “dear leader” is the biggest grifter of all. And people who are stuck in poverty are not inherently criminals or “stupid”. It’s not a crime to be poor, and someone who has the misfortune of being impoverished doesn’t necessarily “deserve” that fate. Drop boxes help make elections more fair, because they allow more people access. But conservatives are afraid that people who make less money– some of whom are non-whites– won’t vote for their candidates. They’re afraid that straight, white people will be less powerful, and less relevant. So they bring their guns to the drop boxes and meddle in other people’s voting.

When I read about these people with their guns, voluntarily taking it upon themselves to “oversee” the drop boxes, all I can think is that eventually, someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to end up in prison because they have been misguided into believing in conspiracy theories. Some families are going to be forever changed, in a multitude of negative ways, because of that misguided belief.

I like to hope that some of the people who believe that the elections are rigged are, overall, decent folks. But then someone gets hurt or killed or even just psychologically traumatized, and it ends up in the news. It’s just ludicrous.

Anyway, our votes are on their way to Texas. I wish us all luck.

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