Apostle Paul's road to Damascus (but it's in Texas)

[Abdülmecid I]

https://www.propublica.org/article/t...-courtney-gore

Here's the gist: Courtney Gore was a middle-aged woman from a small town in Texas that got involved in local politics. She eventually succeeded in getting elected in the school board under a radical conservative platform. She promised to eradicate all that leftist/critical race theory/Sodom and Gomorrah propaganda found in school libraries that poisoned the children's minds and basically turned them into absolute degenerates. The problem is that Mrs. Gore, instead of blacklisting every random book falling under her radar, actually bothered to read them. The unfortunate result was that she didn't find what she was looking for. The content of the books was apparently pretty innocuous mainly busy with teaching the children to be decent human beings. No pornography nor even a smidgen of sexual deviancy. Mrs. Gore, acting in good faith, informed her political allies that there was actually no cause for concern; on the contrary, everything seemed fine in children education. However, instead of rejoicing for this bloodless victory, her patrons were frustrated. They initially reprimanded her, trying to put her back in the correct path of seething and fuming about the Reds infiltrating the national education system, and when she refused to obey, they resorted to threats, including of physical violence.

I think Courtney Gore is a special and rare case in the American radical right, as she's honest and functionally literate enough to realise, once exposed to facts, the fragility of her platform's principal arguments. However, she's the exception and unlikely to affect the overall trend, because, as made apparent by the negative feedback she received, the leadership of the movement is not sincerely interested in safeguarding the quality and moral principles of the school curricula. Critical race theory and its nefarious offshoots are just the convenient boogeymen that help attract voters in the subsequent moral panic. Pretty much like campaigning against Satanist kindergartens in Reagan's America. The issue is however that the public debate is dominated by the extremist narrative. Even the counter-arguments rely on the merits or at least the inoffensive nature of critical race theory, instead of the fact that it's basically completely invisible besides a few university faculties. Cases like these might help to undermine its momentum, but in my opinion, the hysteria will subside naturally, once the electorate grows bored of it and a new scapegoat is invented.

[AqD]

What do Gomorrah and Sodom have to do with this?

And how would you know her judgement is in fact correct rather than being deceived by those cleverly written books? Or worse, she might have been corrupted and attempted to conceal the evil.

Since it's really hard to tell, I support them to burn all books and tear down all schools and libraries. Let white non-trash educate their kids at home to be free from degenerates and save the nation loads of money at the same time. Those parents definitely know what's right.

[Coughdrop addict]

Considering where the country is headed you shouldn't be surprised when Trump decrees that private ownership of said books is outlawed. Republicans rely on getting people to hate and fear the other as their sole way to maintain power, so books that treat LGBT people as anything but monsters or that say racism is a bad thing are a direct threat to their power.

Luckily many people are making efforts to get said books and hide them to teach future generations in secret.

[Legio_Italica]

I think I can guess why the liberal establishment never can seem to pick a lane when arguing something isn’t happening versus it’s good that it is. Setting aside psychological or cognitive explanations, and moving past propaganda techniques and motivations for the moment, I just wish they’d settle on the first part and commit to stopping it from happening, if we can all agree it’s not good and shouldn’t happen.

Case in point:

Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement she had warned on the campaign trail was indoctrinating schoolchildren.

The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism.

Of course rural Texas is deeply red, and Granbury is a town of ~11,000 people, so you’re unlikely to find a decent sample of far left academic literature or pr0nographic children’s books in schools. Truly groundbreaking investigative journalism. It’s unfortunate for Ms. Gore that she had to run for school board to find out where she lives, but it’s less comparable to Roman Damascus, and more so to a village in the Kavir Desert. I suppose Paul’s journey might not have afforded the origin story he needed if he’d gone looking for Christians to kill there, only to discover no one had ever heard of a guy named Jesus in the first place.

If Pro Publica is convinced there’s nothing going on and this is all just anti-intellectual satanic panic, perhaps they could have taken a look at some of the publications hosted in public schools and most frequently objected to across the country. Among the top ten, they can surely explain the intellectual value offered in public schools by illustrated homoerotic fan fiction about Anne Frank, or graphic descriptions/images of child sex featured in children’s books like “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” “It’s Perfectly Normal,” or “Lawn Boy.” More importantly, I’d like to know why parents get arrested if they dare read this “inappropriate” material to a room full of adults at a school board meeting, but it’s ideal for children to read at school. These journalists insist those parents are all delusional far right extremists. Surely they can justify such serious allegations with something more than a random story about a tiny town in the proverbial middle of nowhere.

If the New Yorker is convinced Chris Rufo is making it all up, maybe they should do the bare minimum follow up research and click a few links to include in their condescending biopic. I’m sure they were prepared to explain why Mr. Rufo is wrong to associate the Marxist academic theory of how race, gender and politics intersect, with a California public elementary school exercise requiring eight year olds to “deconstruct their racial and sexual identities” while separating themselves into “oppressors and oppressed.” It should be pretty easy to debunk point by point, since he has a convenient list of sourced examples on his website, for starters. Somehow though, all that got left on the cutting room floor.

Better yet, maybe these journalists can explain what some of the self-described progenitors of Critical Race Theory must have meant when they said they were surprised to see their Marxist theories on race and gender prolifically applied in the classroom to influence kids, and hoped it would alter the paradigm of national politics and government in the US, given enough time and traction. They couldn’t have meant what they said, because professional lib left investigators and communicators told me that’s all lies invented by far right conspiracy theorists.

TLCP: Can you talk about the evolution of critical race theory since its founding, and what, if anything, surprises you about that movement as it exists today?

DELGADO: I was a member of the founding conference. Two dozen of us gathered in Madison, Wisconsin…around a table in an austere room with stained glass windows and crucifixes here and there-an odd place for a bunch of Marxists-and worked out a set of principles. Then we went our separate ways. Most of us who were there have gone on to become prominent critical race theorists….

We didn't set out to colonize, but found a natural affinity in education. In education, race neutrality and color-blindness are the reigning orthodoxy….. Seeing critical race theory take off in education has been a source of great satisfaction for the two of us. Critical race theory is in some ways livelier in education right now than it is in law, where it is a mature movement that has settled down by comparison.

….In this way, education has unintended positive effects in society, and empowers workers to change the system that they are meant to inhabit…Perhaps the young will push Obama to go past what his advisors want, as they only want small incremental changes. He needs to be pushed by the very people who fueled his campaign.

https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu....ontext=faculty

None of these journalists are going to do any of the things I have suggested, because they already know what the problem is and what people find objectionable. OP knows better than anyone, since he would be in the unique position to penalize me for violating the ToS if I were to include a sample of the offending text/images in this post. But it’s easier for mainstream news outlets to call concerned parents Nazis en lieu of an attempted justification to the average, politically uninvolved person. They know full well if there were ever an honest conversation about any of this, far left activists wouldn’t be able to peddle pr0n and race war to kids at school for much longer. For whatever reason, the liberal establishment is determined to prevent that outcome.

Luckily many people are making efforts to get said books and hide them to teach future generations in secret.

“Progress” in all its dystopian glory. It seems like yesterday people who showed their secret pr0n stash to kids got a visit from Chris Hansen, had to put signs in their yards and risked jail time if they go near schools or playgrounds. Glad we are so much more “advanced” now.

[Sir Adrian]

https://www.propublica.org/article/t...-courtney-gore

Here's the gist: Courtney Gore was a middle-aged woman from a small town in Texas that got involved in local politics. She eventually succeeded in getting elected in the school board under a radical conservative platform. She promised to eradicate all that leftist/critical race theory/Sodom and Gomorrah propaganda found in school libraries that poisoned the children's minds and basically turned them into absolute degenerates. The problem is that Mrs. Gore, instead of blacklisting every random book falling under her radar, actually bothered to read them. The unfortunate result was that she didn't find what she was looking for. The content of the books was apparently pretty innocuous mainly busy with teaching the children to be decent human beings. No pornography nor even a smidgen of sexual deviancy. Mrs. Gore, acting in good faith, informed her political allies that there was actually no cause for concern; on the contrary, everything seemed fine in children education. However, instead of rejoicing for this bloodless victory, her patrons were frustrated. They initially reprimanded her, trying to put her back in the correct path of seething and fuming about the Reds infiltrating the national education system, and when she refused to obey, they resorted to threats, including of physical violence.

I think Courtney Gore is a special and rare case in the American radical right, as she's honest and functionally literate enough to realise, once exposed to facts, the fragility of her platform's principal arguments. However, she's the exception and unlikely to affect the overall trend, because, as made apparent by the negative feedback she received, the leadership of the movement is not sincerely interested in safeguarding the quality and moral principles of the school curricula. Critical race theory and its nefarious offshoots are just the convenient boogeymen that help attract voters in the subsequent moral panic. Pretty much like campaigning against Satanist kindergartens in Reagan's America. The issue is however that the public debate is dominated by the extremist narrative. Even the counter-arguments rely on the merits or at least the inoffensive nature of critical race theory, instead of the fact that it's basically completely invisible besides a few university faculties. Cases like these might help to undermine its momentum, but in my opinion, the hysteria will subside naturally, once the electorate grows bored of it and a new scapegoat is invented.

That's a cute story but didn't she run in a deeply Christian town in the middle of nowhere with a population smaller than your average stadium capacity? She found nothing because there was nothing to be found where she looked. That doesn't mean that the problems she mentioned aren't real.

[Muizer]

@Legio and Adrian: the reaction of the people in the articles was not 'you were looking in the wrong place.' It was 'You did not look closely enough or if you did we do not want you to tell people you found nothing'. The article's main story is about people being so invested in an idea, personally or politically, that they cannot accept facts or its messenger that don't support it even if, as you both point out, those facts don't really mean much on a nation wide scale.

[Legio_Italica]

@Legio and Adrian: the reaction of the people in the articles was not 'you were looking in the wrong place.' It was 'You did not look closely enough or if you did we do not want you to tell people you found nothing'. The article's main story is about people being so invested in an idea, personally or politically, that they cannot accept facts or its messenger that don't support it even if, as you both point out, those facts don't really mean much on a nation wide scale.

Pro Publica’s opening paragraphs make it clear what the story is: The “problem” conservative Pharisees are complaining about doesn’t exist. Just ask this former insider we found. The OP seems to draw a similar conclusion based on his summary and thread title, so I don’t think mine is misrepresenting anything. Pro Publica has apparently been running articles for several years focused on Granbury/Hood County, Texas, in a transparent effort to portray US parents concerned by what their children may be exposed to in schools as delusional bigots and religious fanatics.

Best case scenario, several of the pr0nographic children’s books I referenced may have been removed by the time Ms. Gore went looking for them. Worst case, she couldn’t locate them, or didn’t consider them objectionable. But based on a glance at a catalogue compiled by concerned parents in Granbury, at least one of the most frequently flagged works in the country was still available in school libraries, or pending review for removal, as recently as 2022.

I’m not familiar enough with the full list to know how many specifically discussed CRT themes documented across the country by Chris Rufo. One example that stood out to me for its bizarre themes is called “This Book is Gay,” an illustrated instructional guide for children (ten year olds are mentioned as a suitable audience) to explore various sex acts and even access and use sex/hookup apps.

Even in a deep red tiny town like Granbury, it would appear Pro Publica’s characterization of the issue is plainly dishonest, or they just suck at their job, considering what I was able to find out within a few minutes of looking into this for the first time. I too might be reluctant to trust school officials under those circumstances, given the default response to parental concerns in many places has been “you’re a crazy liar and the police are here to make sure you can’t prove otherwise.”

[Sir Adrian]

@Legio and Adrian: the reaction of the people in the articles was not 'you were looking in the wrong place.' It was 'You did not look closely enough or if you did we do not want you to tell people you found nothing'. The article's main story is about people being so invested in an idea, personally or politically, that they cannot accept facts or its messenger that don't support it even if, as you both point out, those facts don't really mean much on a nation wide scale.

The main point of the article is not the reaction of the people but to push an agenda / narrative that the problems she claimed she would investigate are not real and the "fanatical right" made them up. To this end they spin the story trying to make it look like "hurr durr stupid righty luddites" while conveniently side stepping the reality that the problems not only exist but they are deadly serious.

Are the people in Wherever Texas kind of dumb for not accepting there is no problem locally? Maybe. That's completely irrelevant for anyone not living there however.

[PointOfViewGun]

The main point of the article is not the reaction of the people but to push an agenda / narrative that the problems she claimed she would investigate are not real and the "fanatical right" made them up. To this end they spin the story trying to make it look like "hurr durr stupid righty luddites" while conveniently side stepping the reality that the problems not only exist but they are deadly serious.

Are the people in Wherever Texas kind of dumb for not accepting there is no problem locally? Maybe. That's completely irrelevant for anyone not living there however.

The county she is from does have that narrative. If you search for it you'll even see someone breaking into schools with a flashlight to check libraries for pornographic books. The idea that "libs are indoctrinating kids in our schools" is not a narrative specific to blue states. Republicans use such narratives anywhere and everywhere without any geographic limitations to rile public reaction against anything related to left wing under false premises.

[Coughdrop addict]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...xas-rcna161444

The law enforcement officer spent months methodically gathering evidence. He leafed through thousands of pages and highlighted key passages amid reams and reams of paper. He wore his body camera to record his interactions with witnesses and suspects. And he photographed what he saw as instruments of the alleged crime:
Books.

The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.
In an extraordinary look into the ramifications of the right-wing backlash against books dealing with racism, gender, sex and sexuality, an 824-page investigative file obtained by NBC News and NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth shows how, for two years, London vigorously pursued felony charges against librarians in the Granbury Independent School District.
London secured subpoenas, filed public records requests, received names of students who’d checked out certain books and, after a year, wrote draft criminal complaints.

Those charges — distributing harmful material to a minor — were never filed. The investigation came to an end in June after Hood County District Attorney Ryan Sinclair turned down London’s request to indict the librarians, citing a lack of conclusive evidence to charge them with felonies.
Sinclair declined to be interviewed and did not respond to written questions. London, who has ties to the anti-government constitutional sheriff’s movement and tried to launch a local chapter of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in 2020, did not respond to questions.

Good on the sheriff for pursuing these dangerous thought criminals instead of frivolous things like "rapes" and "murders".

[Legio_Italica]

London named six books from Brown and Lowery’s original list that he deemed worthy of charges.

Sinclair rejected the felony case because there was insufficient evidence to prove that the librarians used minors to “distribute, exhibit, or display harmful materials,” according to the emails. And at that point, the two-year statute of limitations had expired for misdemeanor charges.

Based on London’s reply, it seemed Sinclair also was not convinced that the books, taken as a whole, met the state’s legal definition of harmful material.

On May 1, London made a final plea to get Sinclair to indict the librarians.

“After reading each of these books personally in their entirety,” London wrote in a letter included in the investigative file, “I cannot fathom any scientific, educational, governmental, or other similar justifications for some of these books.”

Another dystopian piece of left wing propaganda feeding the BlueAnon conspiracy theory of right wingers “criminalizing books.” For whatever reason, nobody throws around accusations of “banning the internet/film” for attempting to age restrict this kind of content online or in theaters, but the left remains obsessed with keeping it in schools. It’s already against the law to distribute “prurient” or “offensive” material to minors and always has been. These books, which contain graphic descriptions of rape/torture/gore/sex/child sexual abuse were not deemed “prurient” or “offensive to community standards,” solely by the discretion of the DA, not because they don’t exist. The books were flagged by parents for the aforementioned reasons and whoever is fighting this hard to keep them in schools needs to have a sign in their yard and a ban from said schools.

Even more disturbing is the campaign to demonize parents and communities who are trying to protect their children. It’s undoubtedly difficult and problematic to fault the intent of individual librarians who work or volunteer at these schools, and thus no prosecutor is likely to pursue a case like that. Whoever is in charge of procurement and distribution at these places needs to be held to account, and the real question is why left wing activists are so terrified of a future where children have to google pr0n or gory horror films, instead of getting it from the classroom or the library.

[PointOfViewGun]

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth:

GOP Lawmaker’s Wife Makes Little Free Libraries a Culture War Battleground

The wife of an Arkansas Republican state lawmaker has expanded the culture wars to miniature free libraries that encourage passersby to take a book and maybe leave one.
“I have been swapping out books in little free libraries for awhile,” Jennifer Meeks announced in a Facebook post. “From what I have seen a lot of these books and other things don’t align with Christian values.”

‘Vengeance is mine,’ says school board trustee who snuck into library to look for objectionable books with a flashlight

A small-town Texas school board member who believes there are pornographic books in the school library was censured by the other trustees of Granbury Independent School District Aug. 23.
Trustee Karen Lowery — who ran for office last fall on a crusade against “smut” in school libraries — was caught along with another woman searching the Granbury High School library with a flashlight Aug. 2.
Two weeks later, all but one of her school board colleagues voted to censure her for making the unauthorized visit to the library. Some speakers at the board meeting urged Lowery to resign.
She replied: “‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense,’ says the Lord. Board president, superintendent, board and audience: I am not going anywhere.”
Lowery is among a significant number of hyper-conservative school board members elected in districts across the country in the past two years as part of a national movement to oppose Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ inclusion and diversity and inclusion programs. The movement, which has been coordinated by a group affiliated with Focus on the Family, has both religious and political roots.

Book bans in US schools and libraries surged to record highs in 2023

More books were banned in 2023 in US schools and libraries than any other year for which records have been kept, the American Library Association (ALA) reported on Thursday.
Many of the books were targeted because they related to issues of LGBTQ+ communities or race, though the list was broad, including commonly taught novels such as Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird.
The group documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023, which was more than the previous two years combined: 2,571 in 2022 and 1,651 in 2021. There was a 65% spike in 2023 over 2022.

[Coughdrop addict]

The reason Republicans wants to ban books is, of course, that they contain ideas that threaten Republican's power. If Billy grows up accepting people who are different from him, if he thinks of women as his equals and not disposable incubators, if he learns that the Earth is more than 6000 years old, if he understands that human actions can affect the environment, and if he learns that there are other ways to solve conflicts besides shooting anyone who doesn't give him what he wants, he will never have a reason to vote Republican.

[Legio_Italica]

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth

Back on Earth, “smut” was found on the shelves in Granbury school libraries, despite claims to the contrary. The fact that a school board member wasn’t authorized to visit during normal hours to review it would only add credibility to concerns. As for right wing “book bans,” the narrative was debunked in a previous post. Ironically, I’m obliged to clarify the following document contains text and images from children’s books that are obscene according to the ToS, so please don’t click the link if you don’t want to see dozens of pages of it.

The advocacy organization PEN America is the primary source for claims that there is widespread book banning underway in American schools. But PEN America’s claims hinge on a definition of “ban” that most Americans would not recognize. In order to assess PEN America’s claims by the common definition of “banned,” i.e., made unavailable, we reviewed the 2021- 2022 index of banned books against online school library card catalogs. We find that 74 percent of the books that PEN America lists as banned are listed as available in the same districts from which PEN America says those books were banned.

PEN America has been at the forefront of groups claiming widespread book “banning” is underway in schools across the United States. Yet the group’s definition of what constitutes a ban may strike many readers as curious. Even if a student is able to check out a book from the school library, PEN will claim that book is “banned” if any action, such as reclassifying it for a more age-appropriate section of materials, is undertaken by school staff….. For reference, there are approximately 14,000 school districts, so – according to PEN – book bans have occurred in nearly 1 percent of American school districts.

Among the books that PEN America alleges were banned are classic works, such as Anne Frank’s Diary, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, The Color Purple, and To Kill a Mockingbird. In every school district in which PEN America alleges those books were banned, we found copies listed as available in the online card catalog.

By contrast, all ten of the most “actually banned” books contain sexually explicit, if not outright pornographic, passages that few reasonable people would insist belong in a school library.

https://www.efinstitute.org/wp-conte...Ban_Mirage.pdf

It’s another reminder that the liberal establishment holds all the cards and exercises Orwellian influence over the very language we use to discuss these issues. If parents don’t see the educational value of a controversial book at school, their concerns are ignored the vast majority of the time and they are demonized. Even if they succeed in getting a title removed, it is still available at other libraries and retailers outside of school.

When left wing activists want Dr. Seuss banned because his work is reinterpreted as racist, titles cease publication altogether and the publisher apologizes, reassuring the mob they will continue to remove books based on feedback. Countless other titles and authors have been targeted for similar reasons with the goal of a total ban, not just removal from schools. But that’s social justice, not a book ban. It’s wild to see how quickly real bans are memory holed, and the phenomenon projected onto the political enemies of the Party.

[PointOfViewGun]

Back on Earth, “smut” was found on the shelves in Granbury school libraries, despite claims to the contrary. The fact that a school board member wasn’t authorized to visit during normal hours to review it would only add credibility to concerns. As for right wing “book bans,” the narrative was debunked in a previous post. Ironically, I’m obliged to clarify the following document contains text and images from children’s books that are obscene according to the ToS, so please don’t click the link if you don’t want to see dozens of pages of it.

It’s another reminder that the liberal establishment holds all the cards and exercises Orwellian influence over the very language we use to discuss these issues. If parents don’t see the educational value of a controversial book at school, their concerns are ignored the vast majority of the time and they are demonized. Even if they succeed in getting a title removed, it is still available at other libraries and retailers outside of school.

When left wing activists want Dr. Seuss banned because his work is reinterpreted as racist, titles cease publication altogether and the publisher apologizes, reassuring the mob they will continue to remove books based on feedback. Countless other titles and authors have been targeted for similar reasons with the goal of a total ban, not just removal from schools. But that’s social justice, not a book ban. It’s wild to see how quickly real bans are memory holed, and the phenomenon projected onto the political enemies of the Party.

The fact that she was looking with a flash light indicates that it was not really normal hours. The problem you have is that, however, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Earlier you argued that such cases would not appear in the county Courtney Gore was in but now you're trying to justify actions against supposed existence of such a case in the very same county.

The link has censored depictions so its OK to click it. All the books in the link are presented as children's book. Many are not. None are pornographic unless we start calling sex education pornographic. Arguing for its appropriateness is one thing but to make it something its not is an other. What's most ironic is that people trying to replace these books often do with the Bible; an other book with quite explicit scenes of incest, rape, orgies, and regular sexual activities. Almost none raise concern over depictions of violence in any book. So, the issue is not we have the right being against appropriateness but that they're against appropriateness that they're not comfortable with.

There is a reason why people throw terms like "liberal establishment" to cloud the specifics of what they're arguing about. It's what much of the right leaning masses buy as they have little regard for accuracy of what's being claimed as obvious from their support for people like Trump and Vance (Trump 2.0).

[Legio_Italica]

The fact that she was looking with a flash light indicates that it was not really normal hours.

The same article concedes she checked in at the school administrative office the day of her visit, yet wasn’t authorized to enter the library mid morning on a Wednesday (normal hours), even though the school principal was presumably authorized to be in the library when he was with her at that time.

Surveillance video shows the two women entering the library at 9:25 a.m., having taken a circuitous route to get there.

Assistant Principal Danny Guidry saw the two women in the library in the dark about 5 minutes later. He asked if they needed help. That’s when Lowery reportedly said the superintendent had sent her to look at books.

The duo stayed in the library more than an hour, not leaving until 10:50 a.m., according to the video.

Whatever the significance may be of the local bureaucracy, suffice to say the story is just more proof the long-running media fixation on this tiny town in Texas has jumped the shark.

The problem you have is that, however, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Earlier you argued that such cases would not appear in the county Courtney Gore was in but now you're trying to justify actions against supposed existence of such a case in the very same county.

I pointed out Pro Publica is unlikely to find this stuff in a place like Granbury and that’s probably why they used it as a case study to make their politicized argument. Yet even there, examples of what they claimed didn’t exist were proven to be available in schools as recently as 2022.

The link has censored depictions so its OK to click it. All the books in the link are presented as children's books. Many are not. None are pornographic unless we start calling sex education pornographic.

If you concede it’s obscene unless censored, that would also concede parental concerns that the uncensored excerpts in question are inappropriate for their children and therefore lack educational value.

Arguing for its appropriateness is one thing but to make it something its not is an other.

People have been arrested at school board meetings for reading some of the “inappropriate” material in question to adults, so it’s clear parents objecting to the material for children aren’t the ones redefining standards.

What's most ironic is that people trying to replace these books often do with the Bible; an other book with quite explicit scenes of incest, rape, orgies, and regular sexual activities. Almost none raise concern over depictions of violence in any book. So, the issue is not we have the right being against appropriateness but that they're against appropriateness that they're not comfortable with.

The community book donation article was irrelevant, but it’s worth noting the overall comparison here is as well. The legal definition of prurient or offensive material is already based on what people are or aren’t comfortable with, specifically “the prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors.” It’s self evident that a book considered sacred to billions of people for thousands of years would be appropriate based on community standards. It’s also self evident that a new book instructing children on how to perform various sex acts and use apps to look for sex partners would be inappropriate based on community standards.

There is a reason why people throw terms like "liberal establishment" to cloud the specifics of what they're arguing about. It's what much of the right leaning masses buy as they have little regard for accuracy of what's being claimed as obvious from their support for people like Trump and Vance (Trump 2.0).

There’s a reason people throw out a condescending deflection about Trump and right wing masses to avoid the specifics of their own argument. Suffice to say it doesn’t address anything it purports to.

[PointOfViewGun]

The same article concedes she checked in at the school administrative office the day of her visit, yet wasn’t authorized to enter the library mid morning on a Wednesday (normal hours), even though the school principal was presumably authorized to be in the library when he was with her at that time.
Whatever the significance may be of the local bureaucracy, suffice to say the story is just more proof the long-running media fixation on this tiny town in Texas has jumped the shark.
I pointed out Pro Publica is unlikely to find this stuff in a place like Granbury and that’s probably why they used it as a case study to make their politicized argument. Yet even there, examples of what they claimed didn’t exist were proven to be available in schools as recently as 2022.
If you concede it’s obscene unless censored, that would also concede parental concerns that the uncensored excerpts in question are inappropriate for their children and therefore lack educational value.
People have been arrested at school board meetings for reading some of the “inappropriate” material in question to adults, so it’s clear parents objecting to the material for children aren’t the ones redefining standards.
The community book donation article was irrelevant, but it’s worth noting the overall comparison here is as well. The legal definition of prurient or offensive material is already based on what people are or aren’t comfortable with, specifically “the prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors.” It’s self evident that a book considered sacred to billions of people for thousands of years would be appropriate based on community standards. It’s also self evident that a new book instructing children on how to perform various sex acts and use apps to look for sex partners would be inappropriate based on community standards.
There’s a reason people throw out a condescending deflection about Trump and right wing masses to avoid the specifics of their own argument. Suffice to say it doesn’t address anything it purports to.

Could it be because she lied to be there? You read that in the article. You read that she was required to make an appointment, not a call. You read that she signed in to be at a different part of the school. Its all on her. She knew she was doing something wrong. Assistant Principal even asked them if they needed help. You read that in the article too. Her response was to lie. Interesting that you chose to portray that as if the school administration tried to bar her from making a visit to the library.

Even Lowery doesn’t deny she visited the high school library to search for objectionable books. Although at one point the trustee told a high school assistant principal she was there at the request of the superintendent, the superintendent denied that was the case.According to the official school board report, Lowery checked in at the school’s front office the morning of Aug. 2, accompanied by a woman named Carolyn Reeves, who had signed in to visit the school cafeteria, where a school supplies event was taking place.
Surveillance video shows the two women entering the library at 9:25 a.m., having taken a circuitous route to get there.
Assistant Principal Danny Guidry saw the two women in the library in the dark about 5 minutes later. He asked if they needed help. That’s when Lowery reportedly said the superintendent had sent her to look at books.
The duo stayed in the library more than an hour, not leaving until 10:50 a.m., according to the video.
School board policies require board members to schedule appointment with campus principals if they visit school buildings. Lowery said she had called about 25 minutes before her arrival to let the principal know she was coming.

This story doesn't add anything to any kind of fixation. You have failed to provide any kind of substance to support. You're merely building up on hysteria-relied argumentation that leftists or leftist media are out to get you. The lack of coherence in your stance is apparent from your insistence on arguing for two contradicting viewpoints as was pointed out before.

Obscenity and pornography are not exactly the same thing. I see that you're relying on obfuscating context of the matter to create defensible points. Parents being concerned of obscenity is not the issue here either. Not that it invalidates the hypocrisy that governs their concerns. Old texts sacred to a few billions of people doesn't really somehow make it self-evident that everyone should be OK with depictions of incest, rape or orgies.

I understand that you try to make flashy comebacks but they still need to make sense; such as your "condescending deflection" accusation. What is being deflected here? Did you bring forth any argument from Trump or right wing masses that I avoided specifics of? Why is condescension a problem for you when you used it so thoroughly in this thread to describe this mysterious "liberal establishment" person that we're so excited find more about.

[Legio_Italica]

Could it be because she lied to be there? You read that in the article. You read that she was required to make an appointment, not a call. You read that she signed in to be at a different part of the school. Its all on her. She knew she was doing something wrong. Assistant Principal even asked them if they needed help. You read that in the article too. Her response was to lie. Interesting that you chose to portray that as if the school administration tried to bar her from making a visit to the library.

This story doesn't add anything to any kind of fixation. You have failed to provide any kind of substance to support. You're merely building up on hysteria-relied argumentation that leftists or leftist media are out to get you. The lack of coherence in your stance is apparent from your insistence on arguing for two contradicting viewpoints as was pointed out before.

Obscenity and pornography are not exactly the same thing. I see that you're relying on obfuscating context of the matter to create defensible points. Parents being concerned of obscenity is not the issue here either. Not that it invalidates the hypocrisy that governs their concerns. Old texts sacred to a few billions of people doesn't really somehow make it self-evident that everyone should be OK with depictions of incest, rape or orgies.

I understand that you try to make flashy comebacks but they still need to make sense; such as your "condescending deflection" accusation. What is being deflected here? Did you bring forth any argument from Trump or right wing masses that I avoided specifics of? Why is condescension a problem for you when you used it so thoroughly in this thread to describe this mysterious "liberal establishment" person that we're so excited find more about.

I referenced your own sources to address your claims. Empty assertions accusing me or concerned parents of hypocrisy, obfuscation, inconsistency or incoherence to avoid your own argument in response concedes the latter is more likely an exercise in projection. If your position relies on those assertions, or the difference between obscenity vs pr0n, or the merits of the Bible versus certain children’s books, or whether someone should or should not go to the library, or whether someone does or doesn’t support Trump, I can only point out these topics have little or no relevance to the ones they purport to address.

It’s been objectively proven the vast majority of books conservatives are accused of hallucinating or banning from schools are still available, sometimes even in the unlikeliest of places, like Granbury, Texas. The handful that are most frequently banned in any real sense of the term are inappropriate for children and lack educational value based on community standards which define the relevant laws. So the question is why anyone would go to such lengths to keep them in schools despite denying their existence, or demonize the parents and officials who want to remove or restrict them. I am uninterested in how you characterize my commentary on the topic of this thread.

[PointOfViewGun]

I referenced your own sources to address your claims. Empty assertions accusing me or concerned parents of hypocrisy, obfuscation, inconsistency or incoherence to avoid your own argument in response concedes the latter is more likely an exercise in projection. If your position relies on those assertions, or the difference between obscenity vs pr0n, or the merits of the Bible versus certain children’s books, or whether someone should or should not go to the library, or whether someone does or doesn’t support Trump, I can only point out these topics have little or no relevance to the ones they purport to address.

It’s been objectively proven the vast majority of books conservatives are accused of hallucinating or banning from schools are still available, sometimes even in the unlikeliest of places, like Granbury, Texas. The handful that are most frequently banned in any real sense of the term are inappropriate for children and lack educational value based on community standards which define the relevant laws. So the question is why anyone would go to such lengths to keep them in schools despite denying their existence, or demonize the parents and officials who want to remove or restrict them. I am uninterested in how you characterize my commentary on the topic of this thread.

No substance whatsoever. A lot of accusations your own posts are guilty of. You made deceptive claims. You failed to refute or acknowledge any of them. Now that is what deflection and projection looks like.

[paleologos]

What I see:

A) The parents of students in a very conservative town in deep Texas were alarmed by news stories of parents of students in far less conservative jurisdictions protesting CRT and alphabet indoctrination of their children and being brushed off by the school boards in these jurisdictions.

B) Texan parents were very concerned that the same things were happening in the schools their children attended. They brought their concerns to the school board of their jurisdiction and were told that no such things were happening in their town (Granbury, Texas).

C) This was the exact same answer that the parents in far more extreme leftist jurisdictions were given (brushed off). So the Texan parents presumed that they were being gaslighted and a more thorough investigation was required, one conducted by an agent of their own.

D) They managed to get two such agents elected to their local school board, Courtney Gore and Melanie Graft. Actions were taken.

E) According to the story in ProPublica that Abdülmecid I linked for us, Courtney Gore discovered that in her small super conservative town there was no such thing as radical leftist indoctrination of children taking place (not surprised).


My take:

If we presume that the only things taught to students are the things in the prescribed textbooks, then we can conclude that this is a clear cut case of moral panic.
However, one must be cautious not to confuse the textbook content with the actual delivery of the lessons.

The medium is the message and I remember my days in school.
The curriculum did not speak of Marxist propaganda but leftist teachers would inject their opinions in the lessons they were delivering.
The curriculum did not speak of feminism but goody two shoe feminists did not hesitate to inject their ideology between the lines.

Instead, the policy that guides the discharge of teachers' duties, in combination with the teachers' ideology are more reliable predictors of whether planned propaganda will take place.
Videos of Drag-Queen-Shows performed for children in kindergartens did make their way to YouTube (link) and one should not be too quick to judge small town parents.

Personally, I find it rather unlikely that hardliner leftist teachers would remain in a town like this for the purpose of student indoctrination.
The kind of people that are likely to indoctrinate children into wokeism hate living in such towns a lot more than they love indoctrinating children.
There are ideologues for sure, but only a vanishingly few of them love their ideologies more than they love their own convenience.