comment: >
  
  Hi, not a librarian, but I work in Circulation at a library and often handle patron complaints. It's a shit show right now. We get so many people harassing staff about our choice to wear masks that most staff stopped wearing them just to avoid abuse. Our call center is the worst; I regularly get called names or are shouted at just for trying to provide services to the best of my ability. I feel lucky I don't usually hear from the censorship assholes, but it's still not a fun time to be a library staff person. 
  I should point out that my library is one of the lucky ones; others in our area have it so much worse.
context: Libraries are supposed to be magical places for kids to discover, imagine and help them decide their place in the world as they learn more about it. Librarians help with that journey. 
  This angers me to no end. I loved my small-town library growing up and one of the reasons I have the level of empathy that I do was because of the books I read, with no “banning”, no pulling controversial books and the ability to ask questions without judgement. >
  
  Libraries are one of the few true "third places" in most communities, where there is no expectation of spending money. It's vital that we keep these special places alive and thriving. >
  
  That's why they want them gone. >
  
  That's why capitalists want them gone
  Why do religious folks want them gone?
  For the latter I'd say the reason is the same as why they want public education gone. To them more secular education means less religious education and more religious education means less secular education. They view the world as a zero sum game, and they want to win >
  
  Whenever somebody wants to ban something or at least make it too difficult or expensive for normal people to own or use, I always ask who has the most to gain from it. Just saying. >
  
  Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." >
  
  Yea that quote worked before "free speech" became the cloak fascism uses to spread. >
  
  Leaving aside the horrific way people treat these libraries and the people who work and volunteer there...
  ​>The tax in question is about $24 on houses with a market value of over $250,000.
  People who squeal about paying $24 a year to give their community the literal world at their fingertips can fuck right off. >
  
  Starting in 2010 they did the same thing with school teachers. We were shunned from churches (treated poorly) because my wife was a teacher. >
  
  How very Christian of them! >
  
  "Love thy neighbor unless they disagree with your political beliefs."
  -Jesus apparently >
  
  The Bible does condone genocide >
  
  And they’re jumping all over that part >
  
  I'm a librarian and based on the other librarians I know - we're not backing down from this shit.  
  We have a duty to the public to make sure our collections represent everyone in the community and offer perspectives on every lifestyle.  If you don't want to read a book, then don't read it.
  I'm lucky that the town I work in hasn't had to suffer too much of this nonsense, but there's a small part of me that wishes I could get a chance to confront these assholes. >
  
  Librarian here. No one in my system is backing down. We’ve been lucky. Just a few people “How dare you promote this book about being gay! It’s a sin! Wait til the church hears about this!” Well, contrary to your beliefs, we are not a Theocracy. “You don’t carry any conservative authors!” They say as they return yet another Jordan Peterson word-vomit sandwich he calls a book. You can’t make these clowns happy. So I won’t and I don’t. The day these kind of bastards show up to something and make a scene… I hope I have a modicum of the bravery this individual had. No more letting bullies do whatever they want. >
  
  
  “You don’t carry any conservative authors!”
  
  Can't you just point them to thinks like "Art of the Deal", or any number of autobiographies from any number of famous conservatives?
  Maybe point out that authors are often creative types, and creative types who get political, tend to make more liberal social commentary in their books, so it's not so much an attempt at trying to mitigate conservative authors, but that statistically, conservative authors are just fewer in number.  Then point them to the math books so they can learn their numbers. >
  
  Oh logic doesn’t work. They want to be mad. I’m lucky to be in a rather liberal area of my state so we don’t have a ton of issues but the few we do have just want to direct their rage at someone. Same shit with masks. Anything they don’t like, they will get butthurt about. It’s the conservative evangelical way. >
  
  
  Anything they don’t like, they will get butthurt about. It’s the conservative evangelical way.
  
  This comes directly from the pulpit.  Fifty-two times a year Pastor/Father/Reverend So-and-So has to come up with forty-five minutes of something, and very frequently it's us-vs.-them horseshit to bond everyone listening more closely together. >
  
  addicted to grievance >
  
  I love her and hate she has to experience this hatred for nothing. She's stomping on fascism. We need more like her. >
  
  There are many more like her. And they are coming to their breaking points also. Positive change is coming but just like birth it's messy and painful. >
  
  I’m just not gonna put up with their attitudes anymore. Speak up!!! Fight back! When these people get a spotlight pointed at them they run back to their cockroach crevices like the cowards they are >
  
  The problem is sometimes you fight and you win and sometimes you fight and the career you thought you had vanishes and then no one in your area hires you because you're a "problem".
  I'm a teacher. I see plenty I can fight back on but I also know that speaking up puts a target on my back and unless someone is willing to come out and foot my bills if I lose my job, then I have to be real careful when and where I put my neck out. >
  
  Funny enough this is the actual point of tenure, so that teachers wouldn’t feel threatened by policy that they don’t agree with >
  
  Long-time teacher here. Tenure (and union membership) does protect you to a considerable extent, but if a principal or supervisor at board level want you gone, there are ways of doing it-most often the unannounced informal observation with request for lesson plan. While most teachers with any sort of time in the classroom are going to be on top of their lesson delivery game, unless you work in a district where it’s a requirement that you produce a lesson plan ahead of time, most veteran teachers don’t bother with writing them. This a technicality that many administrators will exploit, seizing upon it as “proof” that the teacher was not adhering to standard practice. If it’s a loophole that can be successfully argued against by a good union rep at a hearing, then administrators make unannounced walkthroughs in the hopes of capturing disciplinary lapses in classroom management  procedures. One child with his/her/their head down out of 30? Teacher’s not supervising the learning process appropriately because everyone’s not engaged. If the union rep successfully counters this, then job assignments change. You’ll still teach in your subject area, but instead of the advanced placement/college prep classes you’ve taught for the past 10-12 years, you’ll be given remedial classes, and they’ll group known behavioral issues in there. Used to running a club during the after school,academy to make extra money? That’ll go to someone else. There are a hundred ways to create a work environment hostile enough to make the teacher want to resign, if you can’t force them out. None of this has happened to me, but in 27+ years of teaching I’ve seen it happen to more than one colleague for being outspoken. >
  
  This happened to me. You are spot on and it's a disgusting practice. Long story short I reported a colleague's sexual comment and gesture towards me (because another supervisor recommended I do that) and the principal turned on me immediately. Total Good Ol' Boys club shit but I was new and had no way of knowing the hornets nest I was stepping into. Put me in situations that were difficult on purpose, hoping I'd fuck up. Misconstrued student behavior issues to make me sound crazy or like I wasn't handling kids correctly. Tried to make me physically intervene with kids that weren't special Ed (my license area) while he stood there and watched. He harassed and degraded me for a full school year, forced me to resign from my own job, and he retired that year. I was destroyed. 
  Thankfully I'm at a good school with a good principal now...but it was a long journey out of the darkness. >
  
  I’m both sorry that happened to you, and relieved to hear that you’re teaching in a much more welcoming environment. No one should have to go through that, especially one who performs a crucial function for the school in an underappreciated, undersupported position >
  
  Thank you. What's shocking is that even if these admin want you gone, it's not just enough to get rid of you. They have to do soul crushing shit because it's a power trip. I don't think they consider or even care that they destroy lives with this shit. I was deeply depressed for a year and a half while this was going on, and had to take anxiety and anti depressant meds just to be able to walk in the building. I had to go to therapy. They make you think you're a bad teacher, when you very well may not be. >
  
  Where are all the free speach absolutist conservatives in these situations? Seem to me they're very much in favor of curbing the first amendment as long as it aligns with their dogma.
  I'm sick and tired of the "protect the children" arguments. I have children and I PARENT them. It's not the library's responsibility to gatekeep what my children read. It's not the network's responsibility to gatekeep what my children watch. It's not a game companies responsibility to control what kind of games my kids play. IT'S MINE.
  None of this has anything to do with protecting children. It's 100% just a smoke screen to promote and normalize their bigotry. >
  
  
  Where are all the free speach absolutist conservatives in these situations?
  
  They were never 'free speech absolutists.'  They just used the machinery of 'free speech absolutism' to enable them to spout their insane, usually racist, often authoritarian, always extremely anti–free speech ideologies. >
  
  Not to mention anti-lgbt sentiment.
  You can look at the lists of books that they want banned and if it's because of sexual content then it's 100% chance it is LGBT content.
  They want to ban genderqueer, this book is gay, the color magenta, boy blue, etc.
  But I've never seen anyone up in arms about into Looking for Alaska which also has graphic sex scenes.  They don't seem to mind when their people tall about sex either.  No age requirements if a kid wants to buy Ben Shapiro's book that talks about pegging.  Want to buy bill O'Reilly novel about a pimp?  Sure.  The Bible has passages detailing a woman's preference for horse sized cocks or attempted mob rape of angels
  And these idiots pick on libraries rather than Amazon or Google because they always pick on the people least able to fight back. >
  
  It makes sense that they want to restrict access to books and learning because books and learning might actually challenge their worldviews and leave them without an appropriate response >
  
  That’s how they kept me indoctrinated for 25 years. Christian schools my whole life, villainizing the public school down the road - those “sinners”. Everything is dangerous, Harry Potter is evil (my parents didn’t restrict me much at all thankfully, most of my indoctrination happened at school and church). In biology class we learned creationism, in bible class we learned like five weak-ass points to argue against evolution. It was so fucking pathetic. And I just passively believed it all. Thank god I moved away when I did and met different kinds of people, even different kinds of Christians. >
  
  Damn, I got lucky, the Christian schooling I received was secular af. In our Bible classes we were taught it was all a metaphor or an allegory. Like my schools literally had the view of science is true and that it doesn't disprove God. They had the stance for example, God created the big bang and that evolution was a sign of God's intelligent design. I eventually had my own problems with them because of their snobby attitudes but they are least believed in science >
  
  Was the school Jesuit by any chance? My impression of Jesuit schools is that they’re more fact based than most evangelical schools. >
  
  The schools in my area were all founded by the Sisters of Mercy in cooperation with the Benedictine sisters, so if anything you can call it Benedictine since that is the more well known of the two. Its more so that Catholics are more secular than other denominations. >
  
  Gee, these "conservatives" sure love them some fascism, don't they? >
  
  Conservatives genuinely think that they can tell people what to do, and take serious offense when they find out they aren’t special.
  Literal children. >
  
  It's like the whole snowflake meme was ALSO projection. >
  
  Gaslight Obstruct Project >
  
  So conservatives wanted the library closed and when it finally happened they didn't know why it was closed? Typical. >
  
  No, they decided they knew why it was closed. They wanted it to be because the library was pulling a melodramatic stunt, so they decided it was. 
  That's how these people's brains work. You or I might think it would be grotesque and embarrassing for a governmental entity to pull a childish stunt, but tell that to a DeSantis supporter. >
  
  
  “50% Millage INCREASE to GROOM our kids? Vote NO on Library!” one sign that was directly across the street from the library said, using the regional term “millage” to refer to the property tax. In November, residents again voted to defund the library.
  Last week, the library closed early, citing “staff safety.”
  At this past Monday’s board meeting, people discussed the early closure. One person suggested that the library board was “fear-mongering” and lying about threats against the library. Another woman suggested that the library was closed early as “a strategy intended to manipulate public opinion about a particular issue by arousing fear or alarm.”
  
  
  Prime /r/LeopardsAteMyFace material. They're mad that the library is closing early AFTER they voted to defund it. And are mad that their hateful signs are working. What the fuck did they think was gonna happen? >
  
  I think it is patently false assuming these people are capable of independent thought.  They are Orwell's "2 minutes of hate", but instead of 2 minutes, it is every waking hour.  And they get their daily outrage from fox and infowars. >
  
  conservatives are enemies of the American people. >
  
  "Conservatives" nowadays are nothing more than regressivists. >
  
  Yep, but let them besmirch conservatism too. It's never served any use to society either. If conservatives had their way from the very start the monarchy would still exist. >
  
  There was a time that this speech would have shamed the offenders, but they now live in the age of "double down."
  It's also why DC is failing right now.  The founding fathers had a Victorian sense of honor where scandals would cause self-resignations.  No longer.
  We now need laws rather than trusting the honor of conservatives.  They have none. >
  
  
  but they now live in the age of "double down."
  
  Isn't this the truth!  They know no shame whatsoever. >
  
  Their masks are off and they can’t hide anymore being horrible people. >
  
  Totally.  And the damnedest thing is they have a lot of votes, still, to continue.  I would like to say they are fucked and on the way out, but I don't think for a moment they are. >
  
  I'm really hoping Millennials and Gen Z fucking save us - and the world in many respects - because they may be our last hope at this rate. >
  
  For sure.  Too many of my people (Gen X) are Boomer-lite. >
  
  MAGAS have ruined everything. Every day it’s another fight. Another death threat. Another attack. Another doxing. Anything they don’t like is “woke”. They want to suppress speech. Make everyone around them miserable. They vote for leaders not based on what work they’re going to do, but based on how they will own the libs. Their thinking is in the minority but through temper tantrums, fear, and unethical means they attempt to force their will on everyone else. And they don’t even know what their going to be mad about next week...it’s whatever Tucker (and others) decides to tell them they’re mad at. Grown-ass people acting like bratty violent 5 year olds who have earned no respect from anyone around the world. >
  
  They’re cowards. >
  
  Using the same standard there are probably thousands of books in any given library to the “groom” heterosexuals. We need to ask the question “why” are so ok with it? >
  
  Most books contain some amount of speech which refers to other genders. So it is probably a pretty astounding percent of books will have romance, exploring feelings/emotions, breakups, divorce, or marriage in them.
  Conservatives just hate gay people and love defunding things. >
  
  First off how does someone calculate a 50% millage at only $24 per year?  
  Second fuck these people.  
  Lastly this lady is gold.  Good for her.